Feet on the Ground
by Corana
Summary: AU. Luke Skywalker has grown up his father's apprentice, and can't imagine anything but serving the Emperor. But after one mission, Luke's illusions begin to shatter, and he and his father begin to plan for the future: their future. LV, LM
1. 1

Disclaimer: Characters and places you recognize, such as Luke, Vader, Palpatine, and Coruscant, belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilms; Mara Jade belongs to Timothy Zahn. Characters you don't recognize, such as Rellan Vares, belong to me. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: Luke Skywalker has grown up his father's apprentice, and can't imagine anything but serving the Emperor. But after one mission, Luke's illusions begin to shatter, and Luke and his father begin to plan for the future--their future. Primarily a Luke-Vader story, with eventual Luke/Mara.

Author's notes: This is the first sequel to my fic "Walking the Sky", which you can find in my profile. I highly suggest you read that before reading this, though the basics are that Vader found Luke on Tatooine when Luke was nine, killing Obi-Wan and another Jedi, and leaving Owen and Beru alive.

Also, this fic is written in its entirety, and is eight chapters long. The only delay in posting chapters is when I get them back from my betas and make corrections, so I should be updating fairly frequently.

Enormous thanks must go to krabapple and kayladie for betaing. You both made this fic much better than it would have been on its own. Thank you!

Prologue

One of the things Emperor Palpatine hated most in the galaxy was a plan of his not working out properly.

"You found your _son_?" he asked, carefully keeping all incredulity out of his voice. It would not do for this man of all people to believe him capable of being surprised.

"Yes, my master. I learned of him on Tatooine and performed the necessary blood tests on my flagship. He is my son," the kneeling black figure replied. His head was bowed in respect, but Palpatine knew that he was steeling himself for defiance, if it was necessary. Anakin Skywalker had been good at defiance, though Palpatine had thought he'd eradicated it in Darth Vader. Apparently not.

"And you brought him with you. Here." Palpatine let a hint of displeasure color his voice. Vader was not supposed to be acting independently on things like this, on situations about the Jedi other than their deaths. He was supposed to look to Palpatine for guidance.

"Yes, my master," Vader said again, nothing in his voice or bearing showing that his master's displeasure affected him. "He is my son and I am keeping him with me."

Palpatine narrowed his eyes. Without so much as a by-your-leave--what had happened to his pliant servant?

The boy, of course. Vader's son, this Luke Skywalker, a child raised by farmers on Tatooine. Palpatine would have thought the situation ridiculous if it had not been happening right in front of him. He'd thought Senator Amidala and her...distasteful...effects on Vader safely taken care of--it was almost a pity that he hadn't had the satisfaction of killing her himself, but at least it meant he couldn't be implicated in her death--though considering she'd left an unpleasant surprise behind, he'd been wrong.

Palpatine _hated_ being wrong.

"You did not think to consult with me on this issue?" he asked, almost sharply.

"I did not think you would object," Vader said calmly. "After all, did you not promise me that you would help me save my wife?"

Palpatine's eyes narrowed further until they were just slits in his face. He knew that had just been a manipulation to get the Jedi's powerful Chosen One on his side, and he suspected that Vader knew that, too. But that knowledge had remained unspoken between them because he did not want to confirm it, and Vader did not want it confirmed. It was the foundation upon which Vader's initial loyalty to him had been based, and the last thing Palpatine needed was for that foundation to be shaken by an irrevocable verification of the lie.

Vader was, after all, still the Chosen One of the Jedi, and in possession of most of the power for which Palpatine had sought him as an apprentice.

"Are you sure the boy would not have been happier left with his aunt and uncle?" Palpatine asked kindly, changing approaches. He let his eyes soften, pulled his face into a mask of concern. "After all, Lord Vader, you are hardly the ideal model of a father. What with your duties to the galaxy, he shall hardly ever see you."

"He himself chose to come with me," Vader replied, still with that damnable calm. "And he shall see enough of me--he will be my apprentice, after all."

Palpatine almost forgot himself at that and nearly gaped openly like a fool, but he caught himself in time, and made sure to school his expressions.

"Are you proposing to overturn the Rule of Two, my apprentice?" Palpatine asked sharply. "With the addition of your son, there will be three of us."

He carefully did not mention the other option, that Vader kill him and take his place as the Sith Master with his son as the apprentice. But he knew, from the slight rise of his head and the almost disrespectful slouch in his posture, that the idea had occurred to Vader.

Palpatine did not think that Vader actually would be able to kill him, not he who had survived the Jedi and who was ancient in treachery...but Vader _could_ weaken him enough that one of his more powerful underlings, such as the ambitious Moff Tarkin, could conceivably take control of his Empire and possibly even dispose of him.

But apparently Vader was content with merely hinting at the possibility. "My master, we do not have to hide ourselves from the Jedi anymore. We are the ones who control the galaxy, not they. Perhaps it is time we reviewed outdated rules."

Which was, Palpatine thought caustically, only skirting the core of the reason behind that rule: the fighting within the Sith Order itself that had whittled them down enough that the Jedi could nearly destroy them.

"Perhaps not so outdated," he replied. "You are aware, Lord Vader, of the true reason behind the Rule of Two." It was not a question.

Vader gave the impression of shrugging without actually doing it. "There will only be three of us, my master. And my son is very impressionable--I influenced him very easily myself. It would be no difficult task to bring him up as a Sith with complete loyalty to you."

Put that way, it was hard for Palpatine to find a reason to refuse the boy without damaging himself in the eyes of his apprentice. He could not show possible weaknesses, and implying that he didn't think himself strong enough to survive a third Sith Lord _was_ a weakness, and one he could not afford.

Within the depths of his sleeves, Palpatine momentarily clenched a hand. Outmaneuvered, and by a man who disdained politics! He, who had schemed his way to the position of Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and then declared himself Emperor! If there was a way to refuse to allow the boy to be trained without compromising his powerful servant's necessary loyalty, he couldn't think of it, and that galled him more than anything else in this entire Force-forsaken conversation.

He forced a pleasant expression onto his face, and flapped a hand as if it didn't matter. "Very well, Lord Vader. You shall have your son and apprentice. Do be sure to keep me informed of his progress. I would like to meet him, in two days' time, at 1300. Now if you'll excuse me, I do have other business to attend to..."

Vader rose, bowed, and turned, triumph in every step he took.

--

Vader was smiling as the doors to the throne room closed behind him, and didn't even care that the movement stretched the scars that lined his face almost painfully. It had been a long time since he'd smiled, but this was surely an occasion that warranted it. He'd managed, for once, to get the better of his master, and he was inwardly reveling in it.

Though Vader knew he wouldn't have been able to do it if Palpatine hadn't genuinely been surprised at the existence of his son, and thus off-balance.

His son--there was another reason to smile. The boy was young enough to absorb all that Vader had to teach him and more, and so strong in the Force...he would become a powerful Sith. Vader would see to that.

Luke was waiting for him in his own palace, not far from Coruscant's main military base, and when he reached it, the first thing he did was seek out his son.

"You're back!" Luke yelled, jumping up off the bed in the room he'd claimed as his, where he'd apparently been reading a datapad on the Empire that Vader had given him. He sat back down on the bed when Vader waved a hand at him, and Vader took a seat in the room's only chair.

"How'd it go?" Luke asked, once again seated, the datapad thrown off to one side.

Vader felt a smile twitch at his lips again. "It went well," he said. "Very well. The Emperor gave me permission to raise you--and to train you as my apprentice."

Luke's eyes gleamed with excitement. "So I'm going to learn how to lift stuff with my mind?" he asked, enthusiastically.

"Among other things, yes," Vader replied, amused and pleased at his son's anticipation. He'd been just as thrilled with the idea of really learning how to use the powers he'd always known he had--even if it had taken him another dozen years to learn how to use his potential properly, under Sidious's expert tutelage.

Luke, at least, wouldn't have to go through the tedium and waste of Jedi apprenticeship. Using the Dark Side, he'd reach his potential much more quickly than Vader himself had, and the galaxy would have another Sith Lord.

Then Luke frowned, and looked hesitantly at Vader. "But, um, I don't..." He trailed off.

Vader waited, with much more patience than he ordinarily had, for Luke to finish expressing his concern. The boy was bound to have concerns, and Vader just hoped it would be something harmless like wondering how long his training would take--

"I don't want to kill people!" Luke blurted out, and then immediately looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. "It's just, I know you do, 'cause you _did_, you killed Obi-Wan and Ray, but I don't want to do that, I don't like the idea of killing people..." He stopped and his face turned red, as if he was aware that he'd been babbling and was embarrassed about it.

Vader wondered how to reassure his son. 'Get used to it' seemed to be callous and counterproductive. 'You won't have to kill anyone' would be a lie, and Vader didn't want to begin his relationship with his son and apprentice with a lie.

"You won't have to make that decision for years," he said, finally. And, knowing that his son still admired Jedi--which he would have to be broken of, and sooner rather than later, though this shouldn't hurt--Vader added, "Even Jedi had to kill people sometimes."

"Oh." Luke still didn't look reassured, but the red on his face was fading, and Vader knew that he'd accepted things, for now. Later, once Luke had begun his training in the Dark Side, he'd lose those scruples. But, since he _did_ still have such scruples...

"That reminds me, my son," Vader said, and Luke sat up straighter. "The Emperor would like to meet you. I am supposed to bring you before him in two days."

Luke looked alarmed. "The Emperor? He wants to meet _me_?"

Vader supposed his reaction was normal for a child just brought in from the Outer Rim being told he was going to meet the ruler of the galaxy, so he said, "You are my son, and a Sith apprentice, and are therefore important. Why wouldn't he want to meet you?"

"Oh. Right." Luke still looked alarmed, and now Vader sensed that it was because of the thought that he, _Luke_, was someone important. It was a lot to take in, he knew, going from anonymous farmboy to the son of the second-most powerful person in the galaxy. But he was sure that Luke would handle his newfound status admirably.

"And because you are going to meet the Emperor," Vader continued, now that Luke had absorbed that, "there are things you will immediately need to know."

"Like what?" Luke asked, warily.

"Like how to shield your thoughts," Vader replied firmly. "This is very important. I know you are not quite used to the change in your position yet, and you must not anger the Emperor by thinking about anything other than your loyalty to him."

Luke pulled his legs up to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. He looked vulnerable, and Vader resisted the urge to shout at him to never show vulnerabilities. The boy was only nine years old, and he had plenty of time to learn how important even perceived strength was. "What would he do to me if he didn't like what I'm thinking?" Luke asked, in a small voice.

Vader considered. "Not much, I don't think." Especially considering how Vader had subtly threatened him in order to have Luke as it was. Vader knew that Palpatine would stop caring about the threat soon enough and start reasserting his power, but it was likely to protect his son for at least this first meeting. "But he will try to scare you, and he is quite adept at it, I assure you. He would most likely punish me later for not preparing you properly." And that was a small price to pay for the time to teach Luke to protect himself properly, so that Vader wouldn't have to do it and Luke could take care of himself.

"He'd punish you for something I did?" Luke asked, shocked, sitting straight up again. "That's not fair!"

"I am your father, and in charge of your upbringing," Vader pointed out. "What you do reflects on me, even if we haven't been together for very long. And something that I think you will learn very quickly is that life is not fair."

Luke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I figured that out a long time ago. Farming's lots of hard work, and whenever I complained, Uncle Owen would tell me that life wasn't fair and we had to make the best of it."

Vader stood up. "Which we will. We begin by teaching you how to shield your thoughts and build mental walls."

Luke nodded, and listened attentively as Vader began to explain the rudiments of mental shielding.

1

More than anything else that had happened in his life thus far, Luke hated being a Sith.

The trials of farm life on a desert planet--rising with the first sun, coaxing power out of old and tired machinery, protecting the homestead from Tusken raiders--were nothing compared to learning how to torture and kill people and raid their minds for information.

Luke hated the way people screamed and whimpered and cried and begged when their minds were being invaded or their bodies tormented. He shielded himself against their pain and closed his ears to their cries, but the knowledge of their hurt stayed within his mind and wouldn't leave.

He hated the politics and the politicians and how they would surround themselves with lies, wrapping themselves in a cocoon of them to gain more power. After discovering how many lies had shaped his early life, he hated them, and hated even more that they were sometimes necessary.

He hated the wrinkled and withered old man he was forced to call Master, hated taking orders from someone who delighted in pain and fear and control. He never let the Emperor know how much he hated him--Luke's shields were the best he'd been taught to make by his powerful father--but he couldn't stop the hatred from flowing hot and strong through his blood.

But the thing that Luke hated most about being a Sith was how much he loved it.

The first time he'd killed someone, two years ago when he was fourteen and being introduced to prisoner interrogation, he'd stood there and stared at the body, amazed that _he_ had some power over life and death, that he could take a life prematurely. And something had whispered to him, deep inside his mind, that he did have that power, and that it would come when he called, whenever he called.

And then he'd stared at the body and realized that he'd just killed that person, that that man would never laugh or cry or smile or speak again, and it was because of him. He was responsible for someone's _death_. It couldn't be undone. He'd killed someone, and the man was dead, and it was final. No going back. He looked at the body as those thoughts ran through his mind, and then he threw up on it, uncomfortably aware of what he'd done.

But when the Force rushed through him, it was all he was aware of, and all he wanted to be aware of. His father had told him at the beginning that it was his to control once he learned how to do it, and he had been an eager student. He had known that he would eventually kill someone--his father had strongly implied it when he'd started training him--but it had seemed far in the future, not something that needed to be worried about, and possibly something that could be avoided.

But then the time had come, and the Force was running through him, and he'd killed almost before he'd even thought about it. And after his father had lectured him about how he shouldn't have thrown up and that death was a natural part of life, not something to be sick over or worry about...after that, his father had praised him, and told him that he was proud of his son, who could use his power so efficiently.

Luke could still remember it: the taste of bile in his mouth and his father's hand on his shoulder, and that deep voice proudly saying, "You have done well, despite your weakness afterwards. But do not trouble yourself about it--it shall become easier with time, until you can be strong through anything."

And the Force made him strong, stronger than everyone except his father and the Emperor, and at the least equal to their strength. The Force made killing an easy task, and gaining information, and so many other things. And too, the Force had made it an easy task to forget his reservations and concerns, his fear and compassion, his deep-seated feeling that being a Sith and doing what a Sith did just wasn't _right_.

The Force made things so easy...

--

"Master."

Luke knelt on the floor in front of the throne with his head bowed, waiting for the Emperor to tell him what was required of him.

"Rise, young Lord," the Emperor said, and Luke gritted his teeth but kept his expression schooled. He suspected that Palpatine knew how much he disliked being called "young" anything--he was a fully-fledged Sith Lord, and the least that Palpatine could do would be respect him for that alone--and called him that just to annoy him.

Luke stood, and kept his eyes on the feet of the Emperor. He hated looking at him, at the slumping skin and hard yellow eyes; the Emperor always reminded him of an animated corpse, held together solely by sheer force of will and the power of the Dark Side. Luke's father, although with a different plight, was hardly in better physical condition. Sometimes, in his darker moments, Luke wondered what being a wielder of the Dark Side would eventually do to _his_ body.

"Come forward, Hand," Palpatine said, and Luke's gaze snapped to a deeper shadow in the darkness behind the throne, one that he'd noticed upon entering but dismissed as unimportant when he couldn't feel a Force-signature. A mistake, and one he would not make again. The shadow was a person, and one who apparently knew how to shield his presence from other Force-users.

Her presence. As the shadow stepped into the light, Luke could see that the figure was a girl, perhaps his own age, dressed in a dark gray jumpsuit. Luke's eyes narrowed; Palpatine was a known misogynist, and rare was the woman who made it to a high position in his Empire. Who was this girl?

Keeping one eye on Palpatine, Luke surreptitiously surveyed the girl now standing beside him. She was short, standing an inch or two beneath his own below-average height, and had bright red-gold hair that ran in a tight braid down her back--briefly Luke wondered how he could have missed _that_ in the shadows--and cool green eyes that looked to be studying him as much as he was studying her. He wondered, for a moment, what she saw.

"This is Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand," Palpatine said into the silence, and Luke's full attention snapped back to him. "Mara Jade, this is Lord Umber, Lord Vader's apprentice--and son."

"I did not know that Lord Vader had a son," the girl--Mara Jade--said, her eyes narrowed and focused on the Emperor. Luke wanted to roll his eyes--of course she didn't know. No one did, except for himself and his father and Palpatine, Aunt Beru, Uncle Owen, and Biggs. Six people in the entire galaxy. Who was this Emperor's Hand, that she was now being brought into the secret?

"Now you do," Palpatine said dismissively, without apology. Behind strong shields, Luke hid his resentment at this stranger's inclusion in his secret, and decided that the Emperor's Hand had to be both important and trustworthy for Palpatine to have told her this. He also decided to ask his father about her later, and about why Palpatine told her. His father was much more accepting of questions than was the Emperor.

"You will be working together on your next mission," Palpatine continued, after a pause. "You will receive details regarding this mission shortly. You are both dismissed."

Both Luke and Mara Jade bowed deeply to the Emperor, then turned and swiftly left the room. Luke could feel Palpatine's gaze burning into his back, and, once the great doors had closed behind him, shivered.

There was no one in the hall outside the throne room, not even the red-clothed Imperial Guard. There never was, when Luke had his audiences with the Emperor--no one there meant no one to wonder why he was there, who he was to have such solitary audiences with the Emperor of the entire galaxy, this boy who looked short and young even for his sixteen years. He had his cloak and hood, of course, but neither he nor Palpatine trusted it to preserve his identity among people who lived their lives undermining others and ferreting out secrets, and so they resorted to banning people from the hall.

No one saw Darth Umber in Luke. Sandy-blond hair, light skin, blue eyes, not even a fully grown adult--he knew he didn't look like a Sith Lord, and he could feel Mara Jade thinking the same thing, even though she carefully kept her face expressionless. Her shields were good, very good, but incredulity and doubt leaked through, and it was obvious that he was not whomever she had pictured when thinking of Lord Umber, the infamous Shadow Sith.

He wanted to ask what the Emperor's Hand was, what she did, but he didn't want to betray his ignorance, so he kept silent. She was obviously Force-sensitive, though; she couldn't have such strong mental shields otherwise.

They stood there for a moment in the empty corridor, silent, waiting, neither making a move to leave. Finally she broke the silence herself.

"You're Lord Vader's son," she said; not asking a question, but seeking confirmation anyway.

"Yes," Luke replied, and wondered at how easy that had been to say. He'd only told one person before, just Biggs, who was his friend and whom he knew would take the secret to his grave if Luke wanted him to. He'd never imagined anyone else knowing before; it was part of his identity, who he was, and he was the Sith who struck from the shadows. He existed to be the unpredictable element that no one could see coming, the counterpart to his father Darth Vader, who was obvious in his darkness.

Only his father and the Emperor knew that he was both Vader's son and Darth Umber. Not even his aunt and uncle and Biggs, who knew about his father, knew about his training in the Dark Side. And now there was another person who knew both, and that was...disconcerting.

She looked at him, and he looked back at her, a girl gawky yet graceful, like a trained dancer or fighter who hadn't finished growing yet and was trying to compensate. If not for her brilliantly colored eyes and hair, Luke would think her plain--she even had a very light dusting of freckles across her nose.

Silence surrounded them, and he could tell that there was more she wanted to ask him, but she didn't say anything more, and the beginning of conversation between them stalled and died, almost before it had been born.

Luke caught her eye once more, and then he turned and left without a goodbye. _These games I have to play,_ he thought sadly, because even though she was the first Imperial his own age he'd really met, he was a Dark Lord of the Sith and the second in line for the Imperial throne, after his father. He couldn't talk to her like a friend, and he had to always, always maintain distance and dignity.

At least he'd see her again.

--

Vader always enjoyed sparring with his son.

Luke was fire and grace with a lightsaber in his hand, blocking and parrying and cutting with effortless accuracy and precision, engaging and pulling back with a speed that couldn't be found in Vader's dueling droids. He was a joy to teach and a wonder to watch, but most of all, he was a challenge, and Vader would have valued him for that alone.

In the beginning, Vader had won easily, of course. And when Luke had first started growing into his adult body, when he'd been trying to deal with adolescent clumsiness, it had been more easy than not to flick the hilt of the saber out of Luke's hands and so end the match. But then Luke had started improving at a phenomenal rate, as if trying to prove that his puberty-stricken body couldn't stop him, and, just weeks before he killed his first person, he disarmed Vader for the first time.

But it wasn't the last. Luke, who was younger and more physically fit, unburdened with prosthetics and helmet and synthetic respiratory system, won about half their practice matches, and Vader knew that later, when Luke had more experience and greater attunement with the Force, his defeat in a duel would be rare.

Luke came at him in a rush, blue eyes set in his face, both hands wrapped around the hilt of his saber as he swung it at Vader's thigh--and then immediately pivoted and came around for a strike at Vader's shoulder. Vader, who had anticipated such a feint, merely sidestepped and brought his blade up to block the shoulder cut, absorbing the slight jar as Luke's blade crashed into his own.

Instantly, Luke was striking elsewhere, and even as he blocked, Vader noted approvingly the speed of Luke's comeback. It had taken him months, in the beginning of their sparring, to train Luke to keep attacking if one strike failed, rather than just stepping back and letting the other have a chance to attack. _Always bring the fight to your opponents,_ Vader had told him endlessly, the ten-year-old red-faced with effort, but hanging on his every word. _You don't win by hanging back and letting them strike. Attack, and keep attacking. Don't let them have time to think and recover. Be the attacker, not the defender, and you have a much better chance of being the one alive at the end._

Vader had lived and won by that philosophy--and won again as he expertly took the offensive and pushed Luke back, attacking again and again until his bright red blade was hovering an inch away from his son's throat. Luke turned off his own red saber, acknowledging the defeat, and waited until Vader took the blade away before stepping back and bowing.

"You were distracted, at the end," Vader observed, as Luke took a long draught from his water bottle. "You must not let distractions trouble you when dueling; it can mean the difference between life and death."

Luke nodded. "I know, Father," he said simply, and took another drink. "It won't happen again."

It probably would--even the best warriors sometimes got distracted, and neither Vader nor Luke was an exception--but Vader knew that Luke would try his best not to let himself get so distracted that he lost a fight because of it. He couldn't ask for more.

"Now," Vader said, gesturing with his saber hilt to the bench past the boundaries of their practice circle, "tell me what distracted you."

Luke nodded and walked over to the bench, slumping down on it and waiting until Vader joined him before speaking.

"I have a new mission," he began, then threw a sideways glance at Vader. "Has the Emperor told you of it?"

"He has not," Vader replied, but this did not trouble him. His son was a fully trained Sith Lord now, capable of going on missions without his father's permission. Of course, he still had the undeniable urge to protect Luke, hold him back and keep him safe and away from things that might take him away from Vader, but Luke didn't need that protection anymore, and always returned. Vader would have to trust in his son's skills this time, as he always had since he had first declared Luke fit to take up the name Darth Umber. "Since he has not, are you sure you should tell me?"

Luke stared at his hands. "I don't know," he said, "but it does not depend on secrecy--not any more than normal, at any rate, and it's not like you would betray it. And there are some things I would like your...advice on."

Vader waited, with the patience than no one but Luke and the Emperor got from him. Luke would tell him eventually.

Finally, Luke continued. "I am being sent after a Jedi, recently discovered on Ord Mantell." That would have been enough to distract him; Vader knew that Luke had not been sent after Jedi before. There were few enough of them now, and their disposal had usually been Vader's job. He didn't mind this now falling to Luke--maybe finally killing a Jedi himself would rid the boy of that lingering admiration for them, despite Vader's efforts to break him of it--but he sensed that there was more.

"I...have a partner," Luke went on. "A girl around my age. The Emperor called her the Emperor's Hand, then introduced me to her and told her of my relation to you. She's Force-sensitive, and has strong mental shields, but I don't know about her training beyond that. I was wondering if you knew anything about this Emperor's Hand."

"I have met the girl," Vader replied slowly, thinking, "but only briefly. Mara Jade...the Emperor raised her from a young child to be his personal assassin, spy, saboteur, and courier."

"Sounds like me," Luke commented lightly, though with an undertone of...something. Vader couldn't sense anything directly--Luke's shields were the strongest Vader had taught him to make, and he always had them up--but he thought it might be bitterness, with maybe a trace of fear. Fear of what? For his position?

"You are a Dark Lord of the Sith," Vader told Luke firmly, "not an assassin, or a spy, or a saboteur, or a courier."

"What's the difference, between what I am and what she is?" Luke asked softly, still looking at his hands. "No one knows who I am. I'm just in the shadows all the time, and nearly everyone who's seen my face and known me for a Sith I've killed. He's got you to be the overt power, the hammer that he wields. If he's got this Hand of his for the covert things...what does he need me for?"

_He doesn't need you, and he didn't want you,_ Vader thought, safely behind his own shields. _I am the one who insisted on your training; that you would make yourself useful ended up being one of the conditions for that training._

But Vader didn't say that. That wasn't likely to boost his son's flagging confidence. "To turn it around," he said instead, "what does he need her for, if he has you?"

Luke finally looked at him, and blinked. "What?"

Vader suppressed a sigh. "You are a fully trained Sith Lord," he reminded his son. "Moreover, you are one with a great deal of power; certainly more than this Mara Jade has. Why would he use her if he has you?"

Luke closed his eyes. "Because...because there are enough problems that need to be taken care of by those like me and her that there needs to be more than one person taking care of them?" Luke guessed.

It was perhaps an overly simplistic answer, and not what Luke was _really_ thinking--Luke's shields were up, so Vader could not tell--but it might as well be the truth. It was probably one that Luke would take better than being told that Palpatine feared him, and that was why he kept Luke to the smaller assignments, rather than letting him take a place by Vader's side on the wider galactic stage.

He doubted Luke knew that Palpatine feared him, anyway. But Vader knew his master very well, and could find the telltale signs of such a fear: his initial reluctance to let Vader train Luke, his constant requests for reports on Luke's progress all throughout the boy's training, his decision that Luke Skywalker be erased from any official records, and his insistence that Luke operate solely from the shadows, so that very few even knew what Darth Umber looked like without the black cloak and hood he always wore on missions.

Palpatine didn't want Luke to get ideas of greater power than that which he currently had. Vader suspected that the introduction of Mara Jade had gone exactly as Palpatine had hoped, causing him to question his value to the Emperor, and realize that he was expendable.

Well, he might have been expendable to Palpatine, but he wasn't to Vader. And so Vader would nurture his son's confidence, and remind the boy that he _did_ have value, and that he was a powerful person in his own right.

Vader stood. "Do you have any further questions, my son?" he asked. He had a meeting of his own soon, a debriefing of a Star Destroyer captain who had just returned to Coruscant, but he could delay it another several minutes.

Luke stood as well, then hesitated. "Not about the Emperor's Hand," he said. "But Father, you've fought Jedi before, and I haven't. What is it like?"

Vader considered the question for a moment. "Not all Jedi are alike, of course," he replied, "but they are all taught to not draw on anger and other aggressive feelings during a fight. That gives you an advantage; remember that your anger and aggression gives you extra power, power that the Jedi scorn using. Use that to give you an edge. Be mindful of your training, and the Jedi should fall easily."

Luke nodded, then bowed to his father. Vader inclined his head in return, and then turned swiftly, dark cape billowing behind him.


	2. 2

Disclaimer and notes in previous chapter.

2

Ord Mantell was dirty and crowded.

It was hardly the first dirty and crowded place that Luke had been to--Mos Eisley on his home planet of Tatooine qualified, and he'd been to the spaceport there often enough, and more often than he liked--but Ord Mantell had a sort of edgy undertone that Mos Eisley didn't.

Luke smiled briefly to himself; Mos Eisley was edgy as well, of course, as was any place smugglers and the dregs of society frequented, and the tone on Ord Mantell was similar, but...different.

Luke wondered if it was because there was a Jedi here.

He strode swiftly through the streets of Ord Mantell, cloak streaming out behind him and hood pulled down across his face, his lightsaber hanging very visibly on his belt. The whisper of his presence parted the waves of people before him, and he noticed the fear on the face of anyone who looked at him. No one said anything as he passed, but he could hear the voices springing up behind him.

"--Lord Umber, it _has_ to be--"

"--Shadow Sith--"

"--away from him--"

"--look at him, don't get close--"

"--he here, who's he gonna--"

"--shorter than I thought--"

Luke grimaced at the last muffled voice to reach his ears. His height was still a sore point, and he'd long since given up hoping to catch up with his father. He knew he wasn't done growing yet, but his father still had about half a meter on him--which was admittedly including the suit, but Anakin Skywalker had been tall even without it--and he didn't think he could make up the difference by the time he was an adult.

Mara Jade had left him at the ship they'd both came in on, saying that she had her own job to do. Apparently she and Luke weren't to be as much partners on this job as people going to the same planet for different reasons, which relieved Luke a bit. He hadn't been looking forward to someone watching him kill his first Jedi, especially as he wasn't exactly sure he wanted to kill the Jedi in the first place. Still, he isolated her presence in the Force, shields and all, and tucked it into a corner of his mind so that he would know if she was near.

Luke called up a mental map of the region he was in, remembering his research, and reached out with the Force for the echo of another Force-sensitive presence. He didn't find one, but he wasn't surprised. If the Jedi had been so stupid as to not have shields up at all times, he would have been found long before now. But he must have grown careless, having lived in safety these sixteen years since the Jedi Purges; one of the Emperor's spies had sighted him using the Force and had done a background check on the man. So Luke was here to fix the problem.

Luke sighed inwardly and sunk down to that calm place inside him, the one that his father and Palpatine didn't know he had. His father would have told him to use his anger and frustration for this, but he'd found out before that he didn't need it. He could do the same things when calm as when passionate, and it was really just a minor setback, an unsurprising one, and one he didn't need to get angry about.

He dove into the Force, not just metaphorically wading like when he'd just reached out for the echo of a presence. He kept walking, letting the sights and sounds of Ord Mantell, the smugglers and bounty hunters and people down on their luck and stuck in the gutter, fade into the background. He went deeper, deeper--not as deep as he could have gone, but deep enough that the way was clear, because the Jedi he was hunting couldn't even begin to match his strength in the Force.

His feet walked now almost of their own volition. It was a good thing that people stumbled over themselves to get out of Luke's way, because he wasn't paying attention to what was physically in front of him; his eyes stared off into the distance, seeing the Jedi instead of where he was going. He almost ran into a tall brown-haired smuggler before the smuggler's Wookiee partner snatched him out of the way, but Luke didn't notice. He was immersed in the Force, and it guided him where he needed to go.

Luke had told his father, once, about how he sometimes gave himself over to the Force and let it do with him as it willed. He'd been thirteen at the time, and it had been just after his first visit home to Tatooine, and he was still flushed with the strange thrill of being a nobody again after being a Sith Lord in training. He remembered vividly his father's lecture, about how Sith control the Force rather than letting it control them, and how he should never, _never_ give up his control to anyone or anything. Giving up control could get him killed, and keeping it meant he had the power and the advantages.

His father had made sense, and Luke usually held tightly to his control, especially in Palpatine's presence, when he always wanted to take his lightsaber and shove it, turned on, down the old man's throat, so that the Emperor could not order him about or laugh at him anymore. Refraining from hurting his father's master truly required control. But he always felt eminently _safe_, guided by the Force, and despite his father's instruction, he still sometimes gave over his control to it when no one would notice he had done so.

Luke prowled the streets and in his Force-touched eyes saw the Jedi turn into the warehouse district. He smiled briefly; his quarry probably realized by now that he'd picked up a tail, but also that he would not be able to escape. It was turning dusk, and Luke walked through a stream of people heading home from work. The warehouses would be deserted soon, so there would be no witnesses to the coming confrontation between Jedi and Sith.

The sun sank lower and lower against the horizon as Luke walked deeper into the district, a hand on the lightsaber hilt at his side. He didn't see the Jedi getting ready to ambush him, and didn't think he would, but it never hurt to be prepared. The Jedi could always leave that nice, big, nearly empty warehouse he looked like he'd holed up in to wait.

But he didn't. He was still there, standing in the exact center of the empty space, when Luke stepped in the door. He was a middle-aged human man, brown hair streaking gray, taller than Luke but just as slender. His lightsaber was in his hand, but not lit.

"Darth Umber, I presume?" he asked, as calmly as if they were passing on the street, and not about to fight to the death. Luke found himself respecting him for his composure--the only two Jedi Luke had met before had felt nearly panicked to his senses when confronted with a Sith Lord. But then again, Luke thought ruefully, his father was so much more fear inspiring than Luke himself was, even draped in his black cloak and hood.

"I am he," Luke replied, pitching his voice lower and hoping that it wouldn't break, as it had the first time he'd tried it. Luke could barely keep from blushing when remembering that incident when he was a newly-declared Sith Lord, on his first ever mission by himself, and trying to seem older than he was. At least it had been easy to kill his intended victim when he laughed at Luke's breaking voice. He did think that his voice was done changing, but he didn't want to be proven wrong. "And you are the Jedi Knight Rellan Vares?"

The Jedi just nodded. Luke closed his eyes and sighed, unable to put it off any longer. Unfortunately, the cloak and hood would get in the way in a lightsaber fight, and might end up with unwanted tears in it if he wasn't careful. Gritting his teeth against the Jedi's inevitable dismissal of him as just a child, he unclasped the cloak and took it off, throwing it to one side, where it would hopefully remain out of the way.

As his opponent was revealed to be a teenage boy, the Jedi gaped and nearly dropped his lightsaber in surprise, only recovering just before it slipped from his fingers. "You're just a boy!" Vares exclaimed, and Luke narrowed his eyes as a wave of anger drove away the remains of his calm.

"I am a fully trained Sith Lord," he said coldly. "Treat me as 'just a boy' and it will be the last mistake you ever make." He unhooked his lightsaber from his belt and took it in both hands, though didn't turn it on just yet.

He found himself reluctant to start the fight--the Jedi had judged him by his age, yes, but his father was the only one who didn't, and it was ridiculously easy to do. And this Rellan Vares...he was just a Jedi, and that was not as damning in Luke's eyes as it was in his father's and Palpatine's. Despite his father's stories of what the Jedi had done to him, Luke remembered what the Jedi had done to _him_--namely, given their lives to protect his. He couldn't find it in him to really hate the Jedi, and so he stood, almost uncertainly, saber extended in front of him and still off.

Vares looked at him as if he could see exactly what Luke was thinking, and Luke hurriedly checked his shields, making sure that they were as high and thick as he needed. They were, but it didn't seem to matter to Vares, who continued looking at him as if seeing his soul. "You know," he said quietly, "you don't have to do this. You don't have to fight me."

"I do," Luke said, fighting to keep his voice steady and his eyes open against that stare. _Show no weaknesses._ "I can't disobey my orders."

"You can!" the Jedi urged. "I can see the uncertainty on your face. You can come with me, and I'll teach you to use the Force in the light, not the shadows or the darkness. If you don't want to fight me, then come with me!"

Luke shook his head, and searched for his composure, wondering at how quickly he'd lost the upper hand. "You don't understand," he said, even as he was berating himself--_Idiot idiot idiot!_--for even listening to this Jedi long enough to negate him, for letting the Jedi see any of his thoughts on his face or body, for the small part of him that wanted to take this Jedi's offer. "I cannot leave my fa--my master." And now he was almost slipping and calling Vader his father!

"You can!" Vares repeated emphatically, but Luke shook his head harder, still cursing himself for being unable to grasp that needed composure and still the movement of his head. He shouldn't be remembering Ray Jopaan, wanting only to find someone to complete his training and instead freely giving up his life for a boy he'd just met. He shouldn't be remembering Obi-Wan Kenobi, who taught Luke respect for life when he was just a small child, and who made sure that Darth Vader wouldn't inadvertently kill his own son.

"You _don't understand!_" Luke almost shouted, his emotions spiraling out of control, and behind him a box exploded, spraying bits of duraplast everywhere, slivers hitting Luke's back and neck and causing any exposed skin they hit to break open and bleed. Luke ignored them. "I can't leave. They'd find me and then they'd find you too, _again_, and they'd kill you and punish me and then mold me until I'm even further into the Dark Side than I already am!"

Right after he said it, Luke realized how true it was. He hadn't been watching what he was saying--_Stupid stupid stupid!_--but it was true, all of it. His father would never let him go without a fight, or probably even with a fight, and Palpatine regarded him as _his_, and never voluntarily released something he thought belonged to him, unless he decided it was too dangerous to exist and destroyed it. And Vader wouldn't let Luke die, but he would have no such consideration for this Jedi Knight, and Luke _would_ be punished and driven further into the Dark Side. He didn't want that, didn't want to lose what compassion was left to him, didn't want to be the almost-unthinking servant of Palpatine that even he could see that his father was. As good as using the power of the Force made him feel, holding to his honor made him feel worthwhile, and he didn't want to lose that just because Palpatine didn't care for integrity.

"I can't," Luke said again, and fought against the lump in his throat. He didn't want to kill this Jedi, who offered what he never let himself think that he wanted. "If I don't kill you, they'll realize that I'm not--not a perfect servant of the Dark Side. They'll take steps to change that."

The Jedi was still looking at him, but Luke could see his gaze was now leavened with pity, and the words _Don't look at me like that!_ caught in his throat and stuck there. "There's no need for pity," Luke said, with what he hoped was a mixture of cold and aloofness. "You should worry about yourself instead."

_Don't say any more,_ Luke's mind told him, and he tried to make sure that his tongue followed the order. _You shouldn't have said even as much as you have. Don't say any more._

"Is there no other way?" Vares asked softly. "I do not want to join the Force just yet." It wasn't a plea. He wasn't begging for Luke's mercy, Luke could tell. It was a simple statement, and a cutting one. Luke tried so hard to not think of his victims as _people_, as anything with wishes and emotions and real _lives_. This Jedi wasn't giving him that comfort.

But perhaps... "You know how to enter a healing trance, right?" Luke asked, his mind thinking furiously, having caught on a possible solution as he remembered another Jedi, and an overheard conversation seven years ago. The Jedi nodded. "I could...almost kill you. Hurt you badly enough that you could be mistaken for dead, while you go into a healing trance. Then you could leave Ord Mantell and lie low. You'd have to give me your lightsaber, so I could present it as proof of your death, but you can build another one later."

The Jedi raised an eyebrow. "And what if I win this fight?" he asked lightly, smiling almost whimsically. "Would you come with me then?"

Luke fought down the nearly hysterical laughter that threatened to erupt from him. "You won't win," he said, with the certain knowledge that it was true. This Jedi may be older and more experienced, but Luke knew that he was more powerful in the Force and at the least an equal with a saber, and he had anger and aggression and all his emotions as his allies, which the Jedi would surely scorn to use. He knew it was arrogant of him to think so, but this Jedi wouldn't win a fight against him.

"If I do?" Vares still challenged. He was probably still influenced by how young Luke appeared--and even though Luke hated it, he knew that if his youth caused people to underestimate him, it was an advantage.

Luke shook his head, and let a smirk creep onto his face. "You won't," he said again, "but even if you did, I couldn't come with you. I've got a bond with my master, and he'd be able to find me as long as I was alive." A strong bond between master and apprentice, made even stronger by the close blood tie. "I could try to shield against him, but I couldn't guarantee that it would work. You'd do better to leave me here, in a trance. I've got an associate who would pick me up." Of course, the Emperor's Hand would think him weak, and Palpatine would punish him, but it was just a hypothetical situation anyway, since Luke was going to win.

And with that, he thumbed on his lightsaber. The pulsing red blade seemed to cause a change in the Jedi; the aura of the Force around him grew still, and Luke sensed he was finally beginning to take the fight seriously, for the first time since he'd seen Luke's face. Vares turned on his own lightsaber, a blue blade popping into existence in front of him. Then he held it in the guard position, and paused.

Luke didn't wait for a second invitation. He sprang into action, rushing forward and bringing his saber up in a sweeping motion. It was immediately blocked, which Luke expected, the blue blade trying to push his red one back. He grinned inwardly, and used the force of the push and his own momentum to jump up and flip over the Jedi's shoulder, landing in a crouch. He stayed in that position and swung his blade at Vares's legs; Vares jumped out of the way just before the blade would have contacted with his body.

The Jedi shot him a startled look, one that changed to wary respect, and Luke smiled briefly--maybe now Vares would believe he knew what he was doing. He rolled forward from his crouch and then lunged upwards, his blade puncturing the air where the Jedi's stomach had been a second before. A brush of wind brought warning, and Luke whirled around, rising to his knees in time to block a strike to his head. He held the blades where they were for the moment and shifted his weight to his left leg, kicking out with his right, hooking his foot behind the Jedi's ankle and pulling. The Jedi stumbled, and almost lost his balance, but recovered it just as Luke stood up again.

_Your height is an advantage,_ Luke's father had told him once, when it became clear that he would never be very tall. _People do not expect attacks that come from below. They expect their opponents to target head and chest--the upper body. They are prepared to defend the lower body, but are more comfortable doing so if the attack comes from above. As a shorter fighter, you have an opportunity to get inside their guards like someone of my stature cannot. Take advantage of that!_

And Luke did. He ducked and rolled, this time coming up to slam his shoulder into the joining of Vares's leg to his waist, then flipped back and looked up to see the Jedi hunched over that spot. Luke rushed in again, thinking that maybe he could win the fight then and there, but the Jedi was well-trained--he was up again before Luke could close in properly, and Luke felt him let the Force flow through him to where he would surely have a nasty bruise, at least.

Luke grinned; he did love a good duel, but he'd never had a living opponent, as opposed to a droid, who was not his father, and he relished the chance to test himself against someone else's style. And Vares was good, very good, but he did not have the talent of Luke's father, or Luke himself. He stayed on the defensive, rarely able to stop blocking in order to get a strike in himself, and Luke wanted to keep it that way.

Luke attacked ferociously, stepping lightly on the balls of his feet as he drove the Jedi farther and farther back, towards the wall. Vares tried to step back and circle around to get to the middle of the floor again, where he wouldn't be trapped against a wall, but Luke was smaller and more agile, and pivoted with the Jedi whenever he tried to move away. They were almost to the wall now, a short stack of boxes directly to the Jedi's left--and then the Jedi briefly turned his back on Luke, running and jumping onto the boxes, and from there pushing off and flipping over Luke's head to land once again in the center of the room.

Now Luke was the one whose back was against the wall, but he didn't worry. He let the Jedi close in and begin a downward strike to Luke's left shoulder, and then he ducked and rolled again, straight between the Jedi's legs, then stood and round-kicked him in the small of the back before the Jedi could turn around. Vares stumbled forward, and Luke raised his saber to get in the debilitating blow, but then Vares straightened up and ran forwards, towards the wall and then up it, using his momentum to push off and again flip over Luke, landing lightly on his feet in the center of the floor.

_More than one person can play that game,_ Luke thought, and then he was off and running towards where Vares was standing calmly, lightsaber held out in front of him in a defensive stance. Just before he got in range, Luke launched himself up and over Vares's head, thrusting his saber downward as gravity pulled him back to the ground. It would have gone straight through the Jedi's shoulder blades if he hadn't thrust his own saber back behind him and blocked the strike. The Jedi pivoted, so that his blade was once again before him and his feet were in defensive stance, and paused.

"You _are_ good," he commented lightly. "I don't recall the Jedi padawans of your age being quite so well trained."

Luke smirked. "I am a Sith Lord, not a Jedi padawan," he replied with some amusement. Was this Jedi admitting that Sith training was superior? Luke, of course, thought it was--his father had told him about how long his own training had taken, under the Jedi, and about how the Jedi had held him back, preoccupying him with busywork and constant useless meditation. Luke's own training was much more efficient, and took much less time.

"Imagine what you could do on the Light side," the Jedi said almost idly, as if it was a passing thought and didn't matter. Luke knew better, and rolled his eyes.

"We're not going into that again," he warned. _Even if I really did want to go with him and become a Jedi...I can't leave Father. He probably wouldn't believe me if I told him that Darth Vader cares about me, but he does, and Father would be devastated if I left. I can't do that to him._

Vares shook his head. "You could--" he tried again, and Luke shook his head sharply, cutting him off.

"I told you before, I won't," he replied harshly. "Stop bringing it up. The best that you can hope for is surviving this fight."

And, not giving the Jedi another chance to say another thing, Luke rushed forward again, this time embracing the anger coursing through his veins, anger at the Jedi's refusal to respect Luke's decision and the reasons for making it. _I'm not a **child**,_ Luke thought furiously, attacking again and again, his eyes on his opponent's and not their whirring lightsabers. _I can make my own decisions, and the least you could do is not try to change my mind when I **told** you my reasoning, when I didn't even have to. What about that vaunted Jedi respect for others' ways of life?_

He struck over and over, and though the Jedi's blade was always there to meet his, Vares could not keep up his defense for long, not without resorting to the same rush of energy that Luke was using, and Luke knew he wouldn't do that. No, Luke mentally sneered, a Jedi was too _good_ to use his anger to help him win.

Well, it was his loss. Vares gave ground slowly and reluctantly, but he gave it all the same, and Luke drove him until his back was against the wall. He didn't give the Jedi a chance to use the acrobatics he'd used before, the look in his eyes just daring Vares to turn his back on him. Vares didn't, though, and kept blocking, the frenetic movement of his saber almost at odds with the calm and peaceful expression on his face.

Something tugged in the back of his mind, and he let the Force take over his hands momentarily as he investigated what it was. Another Force-user was approaching, someone shielded, but whose presence he knew--ah, yes, he remembered now. Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand, whose presence in the Force he'd tucked away into his mind as he left her earlier that day. She was on her way to where he was, and was only a few minutes away.

_All right, then. Time to stop playing around and end this._ It had been a good duel, and a nice chance to fight against someone who was not his father, but he didn't want the Emperor's Hand to see him leaving a Jedi alive. She'd probably tell Palpatine, and his effort would be wasted.

He mentally grabbed the Force and pulled it closer to him, pouring its strength into his body so that he would move faster and strike harder. The fight seemed to go in slow motion now, and Luke could see what move the Jedi would make before he made it. It was simple, then, to completely take the flow of the fight into his own hands, and with prescience and speed and a flick of his wrist, he sent the Jedi's lightsaber flying.

Vares's arms fell to his sides, but he still stood straight and tall as he looked down into Luke's eyes, and Luke could sense the calmness with which the Jedi met his fate. Luke hesitated, then whispered, "May the Force be with you," as he drove his blade into the Jedi's chest, just outside the heart.

"And with you," the Jedi mouthed as his eyes slowly closed. Luke removed his blade and turned it off, and the Jedi slid down the wall to slump at its base. Luke knelt down and leaned forward, first feeling for breath and then a pulse. Both were slow and shallow, but they were there, and Vares's presence in the Force was small but stable. The Jedi would eventually heal.

Luke rose to his feet and then stood there, looking at the Jedi who slouched as if dead on the floor. _Maybe I'll see you again someday,_ he thought, and turned around, walking to the center of the room where Vares's lightsaber had come to a stop. He picked it up, studied it for a bit, the scratches and gouges on the silvery cylinder telling a story about the Jedi's rough life. With a sigh, he clipped it and his own saber to his belt, and turned towards the door--just in time to see a figure there pull out a blaster and shoot the Jedi slowly healing himself against the wall.

Luke's head flew straight up, and the figure stepped forward into the dim lighting the warehouse offered, the only light now that the sun had set. It was Mara Jade, and that was not a surprise, because he'd felt her coming himself, but she'd just shot a man she should have had no reason to think was still alive--he didn't think she was so well-trained in the Force as to be able to differentiate between death and what was effectively a coma. But Luke _could_ differentiate, and now there was only the gaping maw of death where there had once been a flicker of life.

_Show no weakness._ He couldn't let her know the true scope of what she'd done. _Act normal._

"You've finished your business, I presume?" Luke found himself saying, coolly and with professional aloofness, as if his plans had not just been shattered around him.

"Yes," she said, and returned her blaster to its holster on her hip. "And I see that you have as well. We can go back to Coruscant now."

"Why did you shoot him?" Luke asked, unable to stop the question, following her as she turned around and left the warehouse, picking up his cloak on the way and swirling it over his shoulders. "He was dead already."

"Orders," she replied, and the tone of her voice warned him not to ask anything more, because she would not answer. But she gave no indication that she knew the Jedi had not been dead when she shot him, which was something, at least. He probed her mind, lightly and quickly and just to make sure. Her shields were strong, but he found tiny cracks, and he insinuated himself into one, searching for any sign that she had known the Jedi still lived when she shot him. Luke gave an inward sigh of relief when he found none, just the orders to shoot. He withdrew from her mind, and glanced at her quickly, but she didn't appear to have noticed the brief invasion.

"I see," Luke said evenly, and did. Palpatine had known Luke better than he knew himself, and must have known that he would not have wanted to kill a Jedi.

That was probably why Mara Jade was really here, and any business she said she had would have been make-work as she waited for Luke's fight to be over. So much for her mission being separate from his.

Luke hoped that Vares had not thought Luke betrayed him. The small part of his honor that he had not let the Dark Side consume hoped that, before he'd died, the Jedi had known that Luke was not a traitor to his word.

They separated when they got to the city proper, where crowds still lingered and people could wonder why a teenage girl was walking with the Shadow Sith. Luke let his footsteps slow, let more distance grow between him and the girl who had just shot one of his last illusions to death along with the late Jedi Knight. He should not have believed his inner self safe from Palpatine, but he had. Now that he knew of his mistake, he could rectify it.

Palpatine was the enemy here, and not the Jedi or whatever else he cared to point a finger at. Palpatine was the one with the ability to destroy him more than any other save his father, but the Emperor had the motivation because Luke knew that Palpatine hated him in turn. He would still do Palpatine's bidding, because he knew he currently had no choice, but Luke would never forget that again.


	3. 3

Disclaimer and notes in part one. Telepathy is in parentheses, because this site is being immensely frustrating and not letting me use anything else to distinguish it from thoughts without getting rid of my punctuation.

--

Vader was in a meeting with some of the admirals of the Imperial Fleet when he felt his son return.

He was normally less than fond of meetings in general--he'd never had the talent or the patience for administrative procedure that his late wife had--but from the moment he felt his son's ship touch down on planet, time seemed to go by slower than usual.

"--and so the Empire would benefit by having at least three more _Victory_-class Star Destroyers sweeping the Arkanis sector--"

Vader tuned the admiral out--his aide would give him the notes for this meeting later anyway. He had more important people to converse with right now.

_(Hello, Son,)_ he sent through their bond. They always greeted each other when one returned to the planet, the legacy of an enthusiastic young Luke practicing his telepathic skills. Only for the Emperor would they delay such a greeting, and these admirals were certainly not the Emperor.

_(Father,)_ Luke returned after a brief pause, so slight Vader might have missed it had he been a less observant man.

_(How was the mission, my son?)_ Vader asked, concerned by that pause and what it might be hiding. Luke had killed the Jedi, hadn't he? Surely he wouldn't be coming back to Coruscant so soon if he hadn't.

_(Completed,)_ Luke replied. (_The Jedi is dead.)_ There was a twinge of emotion at that, there and gone so quickly that Vader could not identify it. _(But for now, I need to report to the Emperor, so if you'll excuse me?)_

Always polite, his son. (_Of course,)_ Vader returned, and closed the connection.

Always polite...but rarely evasive, and if Luke's excuse of reporting to the Emperor wasn't an evasion, then Vader didn't know what one was.

Something had clearly happened on the mission, and it was obviously something to do with the Jedi. But Vader had felt no deceit over the bond, so Luke _had_ fulfilled his orders and killed the Jedi. Was he feeling guilty? Vader was well aware that Luke did not hate the Jedi as he himself did, even after Vader's stories of atrocities the Jedi committed, such as keeping him away from his mother until she was nearly dead, and trying to assassinate the then-Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and many more. But was that lack of hatred going to cripple him in the execution of his duty?

"--Lord Vader? Lord Vader, do you have any thoughts on my proposed deployment of part of the reserve fleet?" a droning admiral asked, cutting into Vader's thoughts.

To cover up his lack of attention, Vader snapped, "Surely you do not need me to hold your hand as you strategize, Admiral? I will decide on a course of action after I have heard _all_ of the proposals. Unless you feel that you deserve more consideration than your colleagues?"

Vader watched in dark satisfaction as the admiral gulped, paling, and raised a hand to loosen the neck of his uniform, which he likely imagined to be tightening around his throat--though it was not his _uniform_. "N-no, Lord Vader!" the admiral gasped, and Vader eased off the pressure.

There was silence around the conference table for a moment, each admiral looking nervously at another. Finally Vader said, sharply, "Surely you have not all lost your tongues? Who is next?"

After another moment of numbing silence, an admiral on the far side of the table stood up, pale beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. He haltingly began to speak, gaining more confidence when no phantom hands closed around his throat, and the conference continued.

The meeting went by with the speed of a granite slug, and by the time it was over, Vader wanted to scream with impatience and annoyance. He wanted to kill that last admiral, whose presentation went on far longer than it should have, but "he talked too much" was not a valid reason for the execution of a competent officer, according to the Emperor. Pity. Still, he likely wouldn't forget the way fingers felt closing around his throat anytime soon, even if Vader had purposely not cut off his air. At least no one had questioned him when Vader said that he would think further on the proposals and give them their orders the next day.

Luke wasn't there when Vader arrived back at their palace. He was most likely still reporting to the Emperor, and Vader found himself again resenting his master. It seemed to be happening more and more in recent years, and usually in regards to something to do with his son.

It had been something of an unwelcome revelation when Vader realized that his son was more important to him than his duty to the Emperor--but only unwelcome because it had to immediately be hidden from everyone. The Emperor would not appreciate knowing that he was not unequivocally first in his servant's thoughts anymore, and so it was safer for both him and Luke for the Emperor not to know of his apprentice's shifting allegiances.

He'd barely sunk into a light meditative trance when he felt Luke's presence close on his own. He immediately abandoned the meditation; Luke, and the unsettling emotions coming from him, were far more important.

"Son," Vader called, as soon as Luke emerged from the turbolift onto their wing.

"Father," Luke replied, walking closer until he was directly in front of his father, and then stepping up to walk by his side as Vader turned and they strode towards the private library on the floor, their favorite place to sit and talk. "How has Coruscant been?"

Immediate distraction from Luke's own mission, Vader noted, instead of Luke's customary discussion of the details, assuming that had not been forbidden him. "As usual," he replied. "No crises came up while you were away," he added with amusement, knowing of his son's predilection for taking care of things personally. The boy had no idea of how to delegate properly. Though of course, with the type of missions he ordinarily went on, he wouldn't.

Luke smiled briefly at him, recognizing the good-natured jab for what it was. "What were you doing when I landed? You felt annoyed when you contacted me," he commented, still apparently determined not to discuss his mission. Vader's curiosity about it grew, but he would wait and play his son's game.

"I was dealing with long-winded admirals," Vader said, suppressing a sigh. Not that he was much for patience in any case, but administrative procedures seemed to bring out the worst part of his impatience.

"Did any leave the meeting?" Luke asked wryly, obviously knowing well his father's dislike of administration.

"All of them, if you would believe it."

Luke smiled slightly, and let out a low, brief chuckle. Vader smiled behind his mask, and how strange that the smile came more and more easily, ever since Luke had moved in with him, and that it wasn't painful anymore. Or perhaps not so strange. Luke, on the other hand, seemed to be smiling and laughing less and less as time went by. Vader would often tell himself that he would finally ask his son why, but something always came up.

Maybe now was the time to ask.

But before he could get a chance to, before he could even think of how to phrase the question, Luke said, quietly, and looking at his hands, "The Jedi tried to recruit me."

At that, all thought of Luke's growing melancholy flew out of his head. "What?" he demanded, more out of surprise than a request for repetition. Then it started sinking in, and Vader's fists started clenching, almost of their own accord.

"He tried to recruit me," Luke repeated anyway. "I took off the cloak, because it would have gotten tangled in the fight, and he thought I was a child and tried to get me to go with him and be a Jedi."

_The Jedi tried to take my son away from me again._ The thought bloomed, horrifying, and Vader almost reached out to touch Luke to make sure that he was really there, that the Jedi weren't playing tricks on his mind by making him think his son was right there with him when he was gone. But then he mentally shook himself; he was being ridiculous, Luke was _here_, here and not somewhere else, not taken away by the Jedi.

"What happened?" Vader asked, and was shaken anew when he realized the depth his fear went at the thought that he could so easily lose the last family he had left. When had it come to this? After Padmé had died, it had seemed all the love in the galaxy had died with her, but now there was his son...

Luke looked up again and smiled, an echo of his mother in the curve of his lips, then reached out and laid his hand on Vader's forearm, as if he'd sensed the desire for reassurance. He might have, at that; Luke was very powerful, and Vader's shielding was not optimal, thanks to the horrible thought of how quickly and easily Luke could have left his life...

But Luke said, normally and without the gentleness that Vader didn't want, "He's dead now, isn't he? I would never have gone with him. Besides," Luke added with a smirk, "there wasn't really much he could teach me, was there? I was the one who found him and then defeated him. I was more powerful and better trained than he was."

Relief. Almost overwhelming relief, but... "Tell me everything," Vader demanded.

Luke shrugged--a comfortable, impolite gesture that Vader had broken him of in public, but decided to leave be when it was just the two of them. He didn't want to stifle his son. "Not much, really," Luke replied. "He was shielded when I got there, but I'm more powerful, so it wasn't that hard to find him. When I did, he tried to recruit me. He failed, and we fought. I'd just killed him when that Mara Jade showed up and shot his body." Luke's eyes flashed, briefly.

Vader frowned. "She shot a dead man?"

"She said it was orders," Luke said, carefully, and Vader received the impression that he'd left this bit off in his report to Palpatine. He obviously believed that Vader would not correct the omission, and Vader was flattered by the faith his son had in him. Not many trusted him so.

"She didn't say anything else on the subject?" Vader queried, but not in the hope of any real answer. The Emperor's Hand was surely too much of a professional to give too much away.

"I didn't ask," Luke answered, "but if I had, I don't think I would have gotten any answer. But I didn't really need anything else. The Emperor gave her those orders, and he must have done so for a reason. He doesn't trust me."

It was said so baldly and calmly that Vader could almost believe that his son was truly unemotional about it, if the boy hadn't just days before been so despondent at the thought that he was unnecessary.

Vader didn't reply. What could he say? He knew that Palpatine didn't trust Luke, and he didn't lie to his son.

But then something simmered up from his subconscious. Hadn't he thought, just before meeting his son, that Luke was more important to him than his loyalty to Palpatine? Luke, his son and student, who accepted him and cared about him and was loyal to _him_, as opposed to an old man who manipulated him and wanted him solely for his power, who'd expressed false sympathy when telling him of his wife's death, while secretly being glad? In Vader's mind there was no contest between the two.

The only problem was Palpatine, and his power and cunning and experience. But with the two of them, the Skywalkers, the children of the Force itself, perhaps that would not be much of a problem after all.

He didn't even notice that he'd thought of himself as a Skywalker again.

"That does not matter," Vader said firmly, finally. "You are more powerful than he is. He does not trust you because he fears you."

He began to speak, and it seemed, then, that there was no turning back.

--

Luke leaned his head against the datashelves, right below the box of what was supposed to be datacards about Corvis Minor and was in reality a holdout blaster for whoever knew the secret of the Imperial Palace's libraries. This particular blaster was hidden in a holster strapped to his wrist, ready to fall into his hand at a twitch.

Luke didn't like blasters very much. So inelegant, even if they did get the job done. A lightsaber was a much better weapon, suited just as much to defense as to attack, with a beauty that a blaster would never have. Luke's was back in his own quarters; people recognized a lightsaber, and recognized too just who was able to wield one, and there was no point in having it with him if he couldn't use it without being recognized.

He closed his eyes and sighed, trying not to think. There was too much to think about, and the thoughts kept swirling around in his mind, getting mixed up and coming but incoherently.

"What are you doing here?" a voice asked, rarely heard but familiar enough. Mara Jade.

"...Learning by osmosis," Luke replied wryly, not wanting to take the effort to make sense just then. He cracked open one eye just to see her raise an eyebrow at him.

"Is it working?" she asked, crouching down next to him.

Luke smiled. "No," he admitted. "Maybe if I were a datapad..."

She laughed softly, and Luke let his head roll back, still smiling. He liked the sound of her laugh. He wasn't sure what to think of her, herself, but she had a nice laugh.

"So what are you doing?" she pressed, and sat down cross-legged beside him on the floor.

"Sitting," he replied. "Sitting and thinking. Meditating, maybe. Why are you here?"

"I was doing research," she answered, "and I saw you. I wondered what you were doing."

"Don't let me keep you from your research," he said, and told his muscles to relax. Why had they stiffened?

She made no move to get up. "I was almost done anyway," she said, and shifted so that she too was sitting with her back to a shelf. "It'll be no problem to finish later."

"Why are you here?" Luke asked again, because there was another why to answer.

She knew what he was asking, and told him, hesitantly, "You looked lonely."

Luke left his eyes closed, and fought down the urge to laugh, though one without true humor. Lonely! As if lonely mattered, to a person in his position. Sith Lords were probably supposed to be lonely. Besides, he had his father. He didn't need a friend.

Wanting wasn't the same as needing. It wouldn't be even if he wanted Mara Jade for a friend, when she was probably just a spy for Palpatine anyway.

But he still found himself answering her, and more honestly than he would have liked. "Sometimes," he said finally.

"Is now one of those times?" she asked. Maybe now she thought that because he told her something, he would tell her everything. _Was_ she a spy for Palpatine, right here and right now? She was his Hand, Luke knew, but surely she had a self beyond that identity, just as Luke and his father had identities beyond being Sith Lords.

And he did want a friend. He'd acknowledged it when he first met her, but it had been a safe desire then, because he thought it would never be fulfilled. This was dangerous, here and now, when there were so many things he did not know.

But what was life if not risk, and what was life worth if he took no risks?

"Yes," he said, the word escaping him in a sigh, his eyes now open to look at this strange girl who wanted to befriend a Sith Lord. "I am lonely."

She looked at him soberly, and there was something familiar in her gaze. He saw it often in the mirror. Alone with him, in a dark, almost unused corner of the thirty-second floor library in the Imperial Palace, she said, "Sometimes so am I."

It felt sincere. She looked sincere. Luke hated not knowing for sure.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and opened them again just in time to see her frown. "Look, Lord Umber--"

"Luke," he said softly, and looked her in the eyes, blue to green.

"What?" she asked, and blinked.

"My name is Luke," he told her. "Luke Skywalker."

"Luke," she repeated softly. "Strange...I never thought about Sith Lords having real names. It seems a bit...mundane."

Luke laughed, a quiet laugh that was swallowed up by the shelves. "I wasn't always a Sith Lord," he replied. "Neither was my father. We've both got names, though he never uses his anymore. I am...more attached to mine."

"Luke," she said again, and her forehead furrowed as if in thought. "Meaning light?"

"Yes," he said, with some amusement, and wasn't surprised that she knew what his name meant. "Ironic, isn't it?"

"Very," she replied with a small smile. "Luke and Umber. Light and shadow. I assume that was conscious?"

"I think so," he said, looking at her smile. "The Emperor chose it, and it fits his sense of humor."

She nodded, and then her expression lost its levity. "Look, Luke..." She sighed. "You probably won't believe me, but I'm not here for any ulterior motive, besides friendship."

Luke looked at her, levelly, and she didn't look away. "Why?" he asked frankly, that in itself a wealth of questions.

She shrugged, and Luke bit back a smile at the informal gesture. "Because I think we're similar," she replied, with equal frankness. "And because I've never met another person my age who knew exactly who and what I was."

"...Me neither," Luke confessed. "I didn't like you knowing who I was, at first, because not many people do." She nodded at his words, as if she knew exactly what he meant. She probably did, at that. "But," he said, curiously, "how did you know I wouldn't punish you for your overtures?"

She smiled at him. "You could have tried," she said dryly. "I'm not helpless."

Something in Luke cooled at those words and that irreverence, even from someone he was already starting to consider a friend, and he unconsciously straightened. "I don't try," he said, voice barely above a whisper, so that she had to lean forward to hear him clearly. "Do not be fooled, Mara Jade. Young or not, lonely or not, I am still a fully trained Sith Lord. Do not underestimate me."

She grew silent for a moment, the sound of their breathing the only thing to be heard. "Mara," she said finally, and Luke blinked as the moment was broken. "Call me Mara."

He laughed at that, and felt warm again. He liked that she refused to be intimidated. "Mara, then," he said agreeably.

Then her eyes chilled a bit as well. "Don't underestimate me either," she said, a clear warning. "I may not be a Sith Lord, but I'm _not_ helpless."

"I know," Luke replied. "You would not have come to Ord Mantell if you were."

Any remaining laughter between them died at the mention of Ord Mantell. "I'm not sorry for shooting him, you know," she told him, voice quiet enough to barely disturb the dust motes dancing in the dim light.

"Of course not," he replied, wondering that she would think he thought she should be. He could not fault a tool for the uses its wielder put it to, and he knew that that was what Mara Jade--and he himself, for that matter--was, for all that they were supposed to be people. "Orders must be followed, even if I personally do not see the wisdom in shooting a dead man."

She smirked at him. "Glad you understand," she said tartly, and smiled at him when he laughed. He got the impression that she was not used to explaining herself to anyone besides the Emperor.

Well, at least she didn't seem to know that he was lying about the Jedi having been dead. His father hadn't sensed it either. It was his secret.

He was tired of secrets. When he was a child, it seemed to be lies that made up his life, and now it was secrets.

This friendship would probably be a secret, too. His father would never trust Mara Jade; Luke wasn't even sure why he did, but he found that it was true: he did trust her, or at least was starting to. And Palpatine...he didn't like that someone might have loyalty to a person who was not him, and friendship was partly based on loyalty. Luke remembered that from Biggs, who had sworn to keep the secret of Luke's parentage and who cared about him despite knowing that he was the son of one of the Empire's most feared figures.

Another secret...there were so many of them. But one more surely wouldn't hurt, and a friendship here, in the last place he ever thought to find friends, was worth it.

--

_/She is tracing circles on his chest with a finger, a relaxing habit of hers that she usually falls into after they make love._

_"Don't let your guard down," she says incongruously, her head pillowed on his shoulder and tucked beneath his chin. "He is still very dangerous."_

_He strokes her hair, the strands waving and curling against her naked back. She is so very warm, with an inner heat that reminds him of home. He loves the feeling of her pressed to his side, her body soft and yielding against his._

_"I know," he tells her, with a comfortable lack of confusion. "I won't forget."_

_She raises her head and slides up to look him in the eye. "Don't get complacent," she warns again. "Otherwise he'll destroy you."_

_That surprises him into a laugh. "Don't worry about me," he says, and leans forward to kiss her softly on the lips. "He's not powerful enough to destroy me."_

_She puts a hand against his cheek, strokes the skin beneath his eye with her thumb. "Physical destruction is not the only kind," she says. "Watch out for our son. He's just a boy."_

_He almost sits straight up at that, but she is draped over him and he doesn't want to move her. "He wouldn't touch him," he says, and tries to believe it. "Not Luke."_

_"You know better than that," she whispers, and he tries to relax. "Luke is strong, but he's got his weaknesses. He could be taken advantage of."_

_"I won't let anything happen to him," he promises. She smiles at him, and kisses him, once on his forehead and then on his lips._

_Then she melts against him, the heat of her warming something inside him. He tries to pull her closer, but she is still melting. "Don't let your guard down," she says once again._

_Then she is gone./_

Vader's eyes snapped open, and for one of the few times in his life he was grateful to the respirator that regulated his breathing. He might have hyperventilated if it had been possible.

It was a dream, obviously. It could not have been reality--there was no Padmé by his side--

_Just a dream._ His mind calmed down as he repeated it to himself. _Just a dream._

Except it wasn't a dream, because it didn't feel like a dream, it felt like when the Force was trying to tell him something. And the last time he'd dreamed like that, it had been of Padmé, and then she--

Vader's heart almost stopped at the implications. Luke. This dream had been about Luke. Of course, he hadn't actually seen his son dying, not the way he had his mother and his wife, but it was just as much a warning as those had been.

He stood up, abandoning the possibility of going back to sleep. He didn't want another dream like that.

_--Padmé pressed against his body, kissing him--_

Why had she been there? He started pacing, hands clasped together behind his back. Had it even been Padmé, her spirit sent by the Force to warn him, or had it just been a manifestation of his subconscious need for her--_No I don't, I don't need her, I am Darth Vader and I don't need anyone_--paired with a premonition from the Force?

Luke was in danger. That much was simple and clear. So too was the cause of the danger: whom else could it be but Palpatine, the only one who existed with both the power and the motivation to hurt his son?

Vader was struck with a sudden urge to see his son, one so strong that he was out of the door and striding down the hall toward his son's room almost before he'd made the decision to do so.

It was the middle of the night and he felt Luke sleeping, but his son was a light sleeper. He might wake up if Vader looked in on him, and wonder what Vader was doing there. And Vader didn't want to explain. Not right then, at least. Luke would have to be told soon, so that he wouldn't get complacent around Palpatine either, but Vader just needed to look at his son and see that he was safe...

But Luke didn't wake up when the door quietly slid open. Vader stepped into the room and let the door close behind him before moving closer, and looking down at his son's sleeping face. His mouth was open, and his tousled hair stuck up on the pillow. Through the infrared scanners on his helmet's lenses, Vader could see Luke's eyes rapidly moving behind his eyelids, and knew that his son was deeply asleep.

Then something in Luke's face changed. It twisted, as if in pain, and his teeth came together in an audible clack, his exhaling breath quickening and coming out in a hiss. Quicker than a thought, Vader's hand came up to rest on his son's forehead, smoothing the furrowed brow, soothing his son into better dreams. As Luke's face relaxed and his breathing evened out, Vader took his hand away and stood back to consider.

Luke had been dreaming too, and unpleasantly. That didn't bode well. He and Luke were the most powerful Force-users in the galaxy, not even Palpatine excepted, and if they both were having portentous dreams...

Vader looked down on his son, sleeping peacefully now. It could not be coincidence that these dreams came hard on the heels of Luke's killing of the Jedi, and his and Vader's subsequent discussion. Coincidence was just as much an illusion as luck. It had to be the Force warning them.

Luke shifted, sighed heavily, legs tangled in his blankets. "Father," he murmured, the sound almost lost in the sigh, and so quiet. "Father..."

Vader leaned forward again, and smoothed the hair away from his son's forehead. Then he turned and left, determined to meditate and think on the source of the threat--and how to stop it from harming Luke.


	4. 4

Disclaimer and notes in part one.

4

"It's not that simple," Luke tried explaining again. "There's more to it than that."

Mara glared at him. "Then explain it to me," she demanded. "Why do you need to use the Force to handle a lightsaber properly anyway? I don't."

Luke sighed. Over the past six months, Luke had come to know well Mara's temper and her desire to think her way the best way and be damned to everyone else. Even though he rather liked Mara, she would often try his patience.

"You don't use it very often, either," he pointed out. "I know how fond you are of your blasters..."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't change the subject," she said. "Really, I want to know. Why do I need the Force to use a lightsaber?"

Luke shrugged. "Different reasons, depending on what you want to use it for," he told her. "If you're blocking blaster bolts, then you need to use the Force to speed up your reflexes, because in some situations, human reflexes just aren't fast enough to block them all. If you're fighting another person with a lightsaber, it helps to judge the blade's position--the only weight a saber's got is in its hilt, you know. All the rest is energy. Also, if you want to use it for a ranged attack, then you need the Force to guide it and then call it back to you when you're done."

Mara seemed to consider that. One of the things Luke liked about her was that even though she wanted to think her way was best, if she was shown otherwise, she thought about it and adapted. Ever efficient, Mara.

Somehow he knew what she was going to ask before she asked it. "Teach me," she said, and Luke tried to hide a wince. Sure, he'd taught her things before, like how to curse in Jawa and Huttese, and how to repair a broken droid, but this was different.

"I can't," he told her, and resisted the urge to flinch away when her glare intensified. "Don't look at me like that, Mara. Honestly, I can't."

"Why not?" He sensed her mood dip lower. "I can use the Force, I want to learn, and you know how. Why can't you teach me?"

"Think about it," he said, with far more patience that he was feeling. She snorted, and he grimaced inwardly. If she really had thought about it, she wouldn't be asking a question like that. "First of all, if the Emperor wanted you to know more about how to use a lightsaber, he would have taught you himself."

She frowned. "I suppose..." she said, not sounding convinced.

"Second of all," Luke continued, as if she had not said anything, "I am third in the Sith hierarchy, and it would be seen as a threat both by my father and by the Emperor if I were to teach you anything about how to use the Force, especially if it was something like lightsaber combat."

"But your father taught you, even though he was the Emperor's apprentice!" Mara protested, though now Luke thought it was just for the sake of protesting. He could tell that she understood why he couldn't teach her now.

"And the Emperor still resents him for it," he reminded her. "Father told me that His Imperial Majesty never wanted me trained, and only conceded because my father outmaneuvered him."

She looked taken aback. "Really?" she asked, incredulously. She leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees. "I can't imagine anyone outmaneuvering the Emperor."

Luke laughed dryly. "My father is still somewhat amazed that he did it," he said. "But still, I can't teach you anything about the Force. If you want to know, you should ask the Emperor."

She blinked at him, and then shook her head quickly. "It's not my place to ask my Master for anything," she said, and Luke knew that she believed it. And he regretted it, though it was not his business--his father always encouraged Luke to ask questions and request further teaching, and had only turned him down if he thought the knowledge would be dangerous to Luke at that point in his training.

But he shook off the regret quickly; it had no place here. "Just...don't ask me to teach you," he said. "It could get us both in trouble."

She sighed, but nodded, apparently accepting that. They lapsed into silence, almost awkward but not quite. They'd have to either leave or start another conversation soon or the awkwardness would be overwhelming, but until either of those things happened, there were a few things that Luke wanted to think about.

Mara was foremost in his mind. He glanced at her, apparently lost in her own thoughts next to him, in that corner of the thirty-second floor library that had become theirs. She was an enigma, sometimes. He never understood her motives.

Why _had_ she befriended him in the first place? She'd attributed it to loneliness, in that first conversation of theirs those months ago, but after getting to know her better, he didn't think that was quite it. She was off on missions just as often as he was, and Luke knew very well that a mission of Palpatine's didn't give you the time or luxury to feel lonely. She was devoted to the Emperor almost to the exclusion of everything else, and wouldn't hear a word against him. He never saw her seek out friendship with anyone else, and he'd watched, over the months.

But he didn't think she was a spy, either. He'd thought it, in the beginning, knowing Imperial reality too well to think someone as paranoid as Palpatine wouldn't try to spy on him, but if he was being spied on, it was not by Mara Jade. Mara really wasn't very trained in the Force, and her mental shields had chinks in them, if one knew where to look. He'd never let her know that he'd done it, because he knew it would have made her angry, but he'd slid in through those chinks and found no order to report what he said or did to Palpatine, or any indication that she was doing so.

Who _was_ she? What motivated her? He liked her, but he didn't understand her, and he wanted to. She was the only person on Coruscant, aside from his father, whom he actually liked, and he wanted to know more about her. He wanted her to know more about him. He wanted to _trust_ her, but he couldn't do that when he still didn't know what motivated her.

His father was always telling him to trust his feelings, to look inside himself for the answer. His feelings told him that he could trust Mara, and that she would be a true friend to him, but there was too much at stake for him to tell her everything. Though he knew that she liked him as well and would prefer not to betray him, he didn't know if he could trust her not to report everything to Palpatine, and that couldn't happen.

"Tell me about your father," Mara said suddenly, sleepily. Luke looked at her in surprise; that was one of the last questions he expected from her. And one too close to something that was always at the edge of his thoughts recently, and though he didn't think she'd peeked, he subtly strengthened his shields.

"Why?" he asked. "You've met him before."

"I've met Lord Vader, yes, but only briefly, and he didn't even know who I was. I know him better by reputation," she said. "But that's not what I was asking. He's not just Lord Vader to you, is he? He's your father. What's it like?"

"It's..." Luke hesitated. How to explain something he never articulated to himself before, and so that it actually made sense? He'd never really thought about it, what his father was to him. He shook his head as if to chase away confusing thoughts, and said, "It's someone who knows you. Your dreams, some of your thoughts... And he's my Master, too. He's raised me not just from a child to a man"--_Is seventeen a man now, Luke?_--"but from an apprentice to a full lord. And he...cares about me, and I about him." That was almost hard to say; Sith Lords weren't supposed to care, but Darth Vader had never been concerned about the rules and Luke was his father's son. "It's..." He gave up trying to find a word for it, and settled for a half-smile, hoping what he'd given was enough for her.

"Home," she finished softly, and when he looked at her, she wasn't looking at him; her eyes were unfocused, and she was staring off into the distance. Then she blinked, and seemed to notice him watching her, and shrugged.

"Yes," he agreed slowly, still looking at her. "How..."

"...did I know?" she finished, again. She tossed him a smile full of shadows. "I don't remember my parents; I told you that before." He nodded; he remembered her telling him of her earliest memory, Palpatine taking her to live with him. "But the Emperor...he's not my father, and I don't think of him that way, but he's still home."

_Does he care about you?_ Luke wanted to ask, but didn't. He knew she cared about him, but Palpatine was a proper Sith Lord, and cared about no one but himself. But he wouldn't ask her about that when it was more likely than not that such a query would make her close up. Questions about her feelings, or others' feelings towards her, especially when they _mattered_, always did.

"Anyway," Mara continued, "what's _he_ like? Pretty much everyone knows him as the cold merciless Sith Lord, but he's more than that, isn't he?"

"Why?" Luke asked. He couldn't think of why she would want to know about his father--unless she were Palpatine's spy, and trying to make sure that he wasn't being plotted against.

"Curiosity," she answered. "You care about him, you said, but the Lord Vader everyone knows doesn't exactly invite that kind of thing. You know him at least as well as the Emperor does."

_Better,_ Luke thought. _I know him better than the Emperor does. There are so many things that Palpatine doesn't know, that he shares with me because he can trust me. And I can be worthy of his trust. I won't tell her everything, but..._

"Formal," Luke said slowly, trying to think of what was safe to say. "He's formal in public, but he's still that way in private. Um. He's patient with me, though he's not with many other people. And he knows a lot--I can ask his advice on almost anything. And he loves flying and fixing stuff."

Mara raised an eyebrow. "That's all?"

Luke shrugged. "People are complicated. Someone's personality is one of the hardest things I know of to explain. You really have to just get to know them for yourself."

"Except it's not likely that I'll get to know Lord Vader, since I doubt he cares or even knows about me, hence me asking you," Mara replied, caustic and almost sarcastic.

"He knows about you," Luke said, remembering that conversation with his father after meeting her for the first time. "Just after the Emperor introduced us, and I had no idea what you did, he told me."

Mara looked at him, sharply. "You sure?" she demanded. "Not just my position, but me personally?"

Luke nodded. "I asked him about the Emperor's Hand, and he called you by name. Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Mara murmured, and shifted her back against the shelves. "Nothing wrong. Don't worry about it."

"But--" Luke tried protesting; surely it wasn't that strange, that the second-in-command of the Empire knew a few state secrets, even the identity of the Emperor's Hand?

"It's nothing!" Mara said sharply. "Drop it."

Eyeing her, he did. This whole conversation was strange. There were things that Mara wasn't telling him, and while he didn't blame her, because he didn't tell her everything himself, it was just...what did she _want_?

She suddenly rose to her feet, a smoothly fluid motion that reminded Luke yet again of a dancer, which she had once explained was her main cover at court.

"I'll see you later," she said, with no excuses.

Then she left, and left Luke staring after her until she made the turn outside the library doors and was gone.

_Will I ever understand her?_ he thought, and leaned his head back against the boxes of datacards, reaching out for the comforting feel of the Force, letting it surround him and wash away all confusion.

--

The bridge wasn't quiet, but Darth Vader didn't notice the noise. He himself gave out orders almost as an automaton, without truly thinking about them. He'd given similar orders many times before, and the Rebels weren't creative enough to require his full attention. His thoughts were far away from this battle.

It was Coruscant that he was thinking of, Coruscant and two specific people living on it. The Emperor rarely left, and Luke was in between missions; they were only two people in the mass of lifeforms that Coruscant housed, but they both burned brightly enough in the Force to nearly drown out all the trillions.

He blinked and came back to himself, glancing out the viewport. The galaxy was out there, the stars hanging seemingly motionless outside the large transparisteel windows. Out there, too, were Rebel ships, a Mon Calamari star cruiser and a stolen _Victory_-class Star Destroyer among them, as well as a space-dead Corellian cruiser. Both the star cruiser and the Star Destroyer were wounded and limping, unable to stand up to the power of Vader's _Super_-class Star Destroyer and the might of the Imperial Fleet. They would soon have to abandon the battle if they wished to survive it, and the pitiful Rebellion couldn't afford to lose what ships it had.

Vader almost wished to be out there as well, among the wings of TIE fighters harrying the Rebel forces. He was at home in a cockpit as he was almost nowhere else, and one of the things he regretted most about this life, the Supreme Commander of the entire Imperial Navy, was that he couldn't fly starfighters as often as he wished.

Luke was the same way. He belonged in the sky as much as Vader did.

"My lord," a voice said behind him, but he didn't turn around, "the Rebels are preparing to jump to hyperspace. Should we continue to detain them until the Interdictor _Invader_ can get here?"

The closest Interdictor cruiser, equipped with that ever-useful gravity well that could pull ships out of hyperspace and keep them in realspace, was still over a day's journey away, and Vader didn't think he could keep the star cruiser and the stolen Star Destroyer there without damage to the _Executor_, especially should some among the Rebellion grow desperate enough to try kamikaze tactics. It would not be the first time Imperial ships had been damaged by such a strategy. "No," Vader rumbled. "Their ships are damaged enough that it will be months before those two can battle again. We will have other opportunities to destroy Rebels, Captain."

Soon enough the Rebels escaped, limping and licking their wounds as repair droids crawled over their surfaces. The battle was over, but captives from the dead Corellian cruiser were already being brought aboard, and would be left to stew for a few hours before being interrogated. Vader had time to go back to his quarters and meditate before seeing to the prisoners.

Meditation had been one of the few comforts left to him, before he found Luke. Taking the Force and focusing it inwards, feeling it rise and ebb like the tides inside his veins, taking the power inside him and connecting with the true flow of the Force was...rejuvenating, to say the least. He settled into the room in his quarters, reached for that connection between self and Force, and opened his mental eyes.

For several moments, he drifted, content to just feel the Force run through him, matching its strength to his own. It was with him, in a way that the Jedi fools had never understood--inside him, undulating to the rhythm of his heartbeat, part of him. This was what meditation was for; not to find peace, or serenity, or whatever other illusions the Jedi comforted themselves with. Finding the Force inside him and holding onto it, letting it wash over him...that was meditation.

Then he suddenly found himself caught up in the inexorable flow, and thrown unceremoniously inside a vision.

_/Luke screams. He screams and screams, and the sound of it echoes and will not stop. Blue lightning--Force lightning--dances over his flesh, running over him from head to toe and catching in his teeth. He is on the floor and shaking uncontrollably from the shocks._

_"Father," he groans, before another scream erupts from his throat. In the background there is a maniacal cackling, reverberating through the room as much as the screaming does._

_"Father, please. Help me," Luke pleads, bright blue eyes open and dazed. Lightning seems to flicker in them too, in the shrinking blackness of the pupil. The cackling gets louder._

_Luke writhes in pain, utter agony, unable to control the movement of his body except to reach out helplessly with one trembling hand._

_"Father!" he screams, with as much volume as is left to him in his dying. "Father..."_

_And then, slowly, the light in his eyes begins to go out./_

"_No!_"

Vader came back to himself to find that he was on his feet, in a battle-ready stance, lightsaber in his hand but not activated.

"No..." The word was again torn from him, and he forgot his training as his head began to shake, back and forth, in complete denial of what he had just seen. "Not Luke, not my _son_..."

Desperately, he reached again for the Force, and plunged into its flow, searching for another vision, a different one. He was willfully carried away.

_/Luke's head is thrown back and his mouth is open. He is breathing in the lightning and it becomes a part of him, his blood carrying white-hot pain with the oxygen to every part of his body._

_"Father!" he screams, twitching. "Please, help me!"_

_There is laughter in the background, low, satisfied, cruel laughter, punctuated only by the screams._

_"**Father!**"/_

Now Vader found himself on his knees, the lightsaber thrown away from him with such force that it made a dent in the durasteel wall opposite him.

He didn't think, unable to get the echoes of his son's pain out of his mind, and again reached--

_/Screaming. Screaming. Unending screaming, from a throat whose vocal cords are almost torn._

_On the floor Luke writhes. "Help me, please," he moans. "Father..."/_

Again he searched, unable to stop, trying to find just one vision that was different--

_/Screams. More screams._

_"**Father!**"/_

This time he tore himself away from the vision, unwilling to watch any more of it. He would have been gasping for breath, had the respirator allowed.

He couldn't meditate anymore--he couldn't chance the vision taking him again. Luke, being electrocuted to the point of death... It wouldn't be soon, Vader didn't think. Luke had looked older, in the vision, in his early twenties at least. He was only seventeen now, so they had time to prepare, time that his tormented mother and pregnant wife had not had.

And Vader knew exactly what they would have to prepare for. He'd recognized that laugh, in the background of the visions. And he knew that there was only one person capable of producing Force-lightning of that intensity, and who used it as his weapon of choice.

Unknowingly, Vader clenched his fist, and he wished some fool would blunder across him so that he could have the comfort of taking out his anger in a choke-hold. Of course, it wouldn't be whom he really wanted to be choking, but that was impossible right then.

Palpatine! It had been years since Vader had thought of his master with any real fondness, a far cry from the days when Vader had counted the man his best friend save Obi-Wan. Sith traditions had destroyed that friendship completely, but Vader didn't miss it: he had the Force, and he had his son.

And he would continue to have his son. He hadn't been able to save his mother, and he hadn't been able to save Padmé, but Luke would be different. He would _not_ let his son go.

A buzzing at his door panel saved him from further dwelling on his vision, and he strode across the room to open the door. "What is it, Lieutenant?" he asked, though it was mostly just formality. The prisoners must be secured and ready for interrogation.

The lieutenant confirmed this. "The wardens are ready for you, my lord," he said diffidently, controlling his fear at being the one sent to fetch the Sith Lord admirably.

Vader merely nodded confirmation, and swept out of the room, the lieutenant following in his wake as the door closed behind him. He made his way into the bowels of the ship to the detention center, far from any hangar bays, so that an escaped prisoner would never be able to reach one before being caught.

The first prisoner on the roster was a brave one; though strapped to a chair and helpless, he barely cringed when Vader walked into the room, and after that almost unnoticeable lapse, recovered his calm with aplomb. But then, Vader wouldn't have expected anything else of the ship's captain.

"Hello, Captain," Vader greeted politely, waving the other personnel out of the room. "What do you think of our hospitality?"

Confusion flickered in the man's eyes, which then hardened into suspicion. "I've had worse," he replied cordially enough, but with an undertone of frost. "Then again, I've had better."

"Indeed," Vader said. He made a gesture to someone outside, and immediately a droning filled the small room as a dark globe floated in on its own repulsorlifts. It had numerous appendages, and attached to one was a syringe filled with a creamy liquid.

Vader gave the captain time to study the droid, then said, "You can make things easier for yourself, or you can make them difficult. Choose."

The man's eyes moved back and forth between Vader and the droid. "What makes you think I know anything worth interrogating for?" he asked.

"I ask the questions, not you," Vader said, and closed his fist slightly, just enough that the man would feel the pressure on his throat, before easing off. "Choose." This time his voice was filled with menace, hinting at torture should the captain not be cooperative.

"I know nothing worth telling," the captain declared, his breath beginning to come shallower and quicker as his eyes continually flicked between Vader and the droid. Vader almost sighed in boredom; this man would be less than a challenge, if not easy to break.

"That is for me to decide," Vader told him. "May I presume you choose to be difficult?"

The man's mouth worked, and he spit a gob of saliva onto the floor near Vader's boot. "Think what you like," he said. "You'll get nothing from me."

Foolishly defiant--it wouldn't help him, and he would break. Vader could feel his fear already beginning to overwhelm him, for all the brave posturing. But he might last long enough for Vader to have a bit of fun with him. The fear flowed off him hot and terrible into the Force, and Vader absorbed it, then used it to increase the aura of power around him. He stepped closer to the prisoner, and watched in satisfaction as the man flinched away.

"Let's begin with something simple. Where is the Rebel base?" Vader inquired, casually, as if he didn't care at all about what was happening. And he didn't, really; interrogation was useful, and could be stimulating, but he had other things he would rather be doing. Like crushing Palpatine's throat for daring to plan harm to Luke.

He thrust that thought away--it would only distract him, and it was not yet time for Vader to reveal his true feelings for his master.

The captain was silent. Vader sighed inwardly, and waved the droid forward, its syringe snapping out and plunging the point into the man's arm. The liquid, a nerve stimulant that would help the man _appreciate_ all the sensations he would soon be feeling, slowly emptied into his veins.

"I ask again, Captain. Where is the Rebel base?" The droid removed the syringe from the man's arm, but stayed close. At a gesture from Vader, it would bring any number of its applications forward, and the good captain would wish very heartily that he had not been so stubborn.

So it proved. Though the captain had tried, he had not been able to resist--though unfortunately, the only base that he knew of had been destroyed by the Imperial Fleet just earlier that week. He had no other useful information to offer, not even the identities of the leaders, apart from Senator Mon Mothma of Chandrila, whom the Empire had already known about.

Of course, the broken captain was no longer of any use, and once Vader had crushed his throat and thrown his body into the cell holding his crew so they could see the consequences of defiance, he left the questioning of the rest of the Rebels to the other interrogators, and went back to his quarters. He had to prepare a report for the Emperor.

The battle and its aftermath had been...disappointing. But not overly so; though Vader believed in the Empire and its strength, he didn't care about its clashes with the Rebellion. Although the separate cells had recently reformed into a so-called Rebel Alliance, it wasn't that big a threat. Especially not when the Emperor finally unveiled his almost complete superweapon.

The Death Star. Vader snorted. A technological terror, able to destroy planets with a single blast--and entirely insignificant, compared to the power of the Force. Palpatine's preoccupation with the battle moon was only the latest in a series of things about which Vader disapproved. But he couldn't expect the Emperor to understand; though he was a Sith Lord, he'd lived his life as a politician, gaining power through physical and political means. He'd never lived his life based around the Force as Vader always had, even as a child slave racing pods for his owner.

Palpatine was contemptible. And he was dragging the galaxy down, relying on technology and politics rather than the only _true_ power to be found in the universe, the Force.

Unfortunate, that the time was not yet ripe to dispose of him; Vader was getting heartily sick of playing the loyal apprentice. But when it was time...

Vader strode through the corridors of his ship, he the highest authority that could be found on board, and couldn't stop an anticipatory smirk from forming on his face.


	5. 5

Notes and disclaimer in first chapter.

5

Luke leaned back against the bar, casually sipping his drink and letting his eyes wander over the room. It was smoky, dimly lit, and crowded, full of the scents of unwashed bodies of several species. It was warmer than Luke would have preferred, but it was where his current quarry had come to taste the offerings of lowlifes, so Luke was there.

A Rodian glanced at him, perhaps wondering what someone like him--young, human, wearing moderately good clothes, and _clean_--was doing in a cantina like this. Luke gave no impression of even noticing the attention, and reached out with the Force to get the alien to think what he wanted it to--_Nothing strange here. I want another drink._

Luke felt exposed. Damn the cloak and hood for being distinctive, but he didn't want to scare away the man he was hunting, and his natural appearance was less than intimidating, to say the least. He just wanted his cloak back.

Ah, and there was the quarry, over there in the corner. Senatorial aide Orin Jarrell of Aduba III, who had been embezzling Senate funds and using them for his own pleasure. He sat with a Twi'lek woman on each knee, and Luke grimaced in disgust at the evidence of the aide's exotic prostitute predilection.

Luke sipped his drink, trying not to gag. He wished he hadn't had to order anything--he hated alcohol and how it loosened his control, even with the metabolizing effects of the Force--but it would have looked out-of-place for someone to come into a cantina and not order anything to drink, and Luke didn't want to alert the good aide that something was amiss and risk him fleeing the cantina.

Then something crashed into him, and it was only his reflexes that kept him from spilling his drink all over himself. He turned to face an alien, short and chubby and furry with multiple eyes and appendages, that was weaving on its feet and apparently drunk. He didn't know what it was, and he didn't care.

Luke would have liked to blast it for jostling him and distracting him--he would have, if Jarrell had slipped out while Luke was catching his drink--but he was trying to remain inconspicuous, and Jarrell was still in the corner, so he ignored it. It didn't ignore him, however, saying something garbled in its own language. Luke raised an eyebrow at it, not having any idea of what it had said, and started to go back to his drink when a short and greasy-looking human appeared behind it and listened to it garble again.

"He doesn't like you," the man told Luke, after the alien finished saying whatever it said.

"I'm sorry about that," Luke said calmly and disinterestedly, not caring if he gained the regard of a drunken alien. He was about to take another sip of his drink when the man tapped him on the shoulder.

"I don't like you either," the man informed him.

"I don't care," Luke said, rolling his eyes and shrugging the man's hand off his shoulder.

Now the man looked angry, and people around them started to notice what was going on. Luke looked for the aide, to make sure he hadn't slipped away when Luke was distracted, but he was still there, with one hand inside one of the Twi'lek girls' shirts. He didn't appear to be paying attention to what was unfolding at the bar, which was fortunate, at least.

The greasy man grabbed Luke's chin and swung his head around to look at him. "You should care," the man told him, angrily, with a strange glittering in his eyes that Luke thought might have been spice. "I'm a wanted man. I've got a death mark in twelve systems!"

_Enough of this._ Luke twitched his hand, and his blaster slid from its wrist holster into his palm. He had it pressed into the man's stomach before anyone could blink. "I don't like you either," Luke said shortly, "and I think you'll find that my dislike is a lot more fatal than yours is. If you don't want to find out for sure, you'll leave me alone."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Orin Jarrell start to stagger out the door, his arms around the waists of both Twi'leks. Without waiting for the greasy man's reply, if one was coming, Luke slid the blaster back into its holster and stood up, walking away and leaving the cantina without any resistance. It helped that people moved out of his way.

Night had fallen while he'd waited for the aide, and there were few people out on the streets. Keeping an eye on the progress of the aide and his Twi'lek supports, Luke ducked into an alley and pulled his lightsaber and compacted cloak from a large pouch belted at his waist. He swung the cloak around his shoulders and drew the hood up, then clipped the lightsaber to his belt with a sigh of relief--finally, he could get this mission over with.

He kept to the shadows as he followed the aide's progress, shunting attention away from him with the Force if anyone happened to look in his direction. The aide was heading for a seedy hotel not far from the cantina, one Luke remembered from his research on the area that rented rooms by the hour. Considering the way his hands were straying, and the way the Twi'leks were giggling, it was obvious what the aide intended to do.

He stalked them, unnoticed, straight to the rented room, projecting through the Force an image of empty air where he stood. Though the door in front of him was locked, that wasn't an obstacle; he turned the lock with the Force, and then quickly opened the door, stepped into the room, then closed and locked the door behind him again.

"Hey, what're you--" the aide started to shout, turning from where the Twi'leks had started to undress him to face the one who had just barged into his room. Upon seeing exactly who it was, however, he closed his mouth with a snap, and the blood drained from his face, leaving it a pasty white.

"Senatorial aide Orin Jarrell," Luke intoned, unclipping his saber from his belt and bringing it up to hold two-handed, "you have been charged by the Emperor for embezzling Imperial funds and spreading corruption through the Senate."

"Wait a minute, I can explain!" the aide protested weakly, groping behind him for his shirt, backing up until he was pressed against the cracked wall. The Twi'leks had fled to a corner, trying to escape his notice, and Luke paid them no mind; he was not here for them.

"The Emperor is not interested in your excuses," Luke said, and ignited the saber with its customary _snap-hiss_. "He has decreed your death."

Luke stepped further into the room, and the man shrunk away from him pathetically, gibbering about all the money Luke could have, or his share of the Twi'leks, and Luke snorted--as if he cared about money or sex with aliens. _Bribery is utterly contemptible,_ Luke's father had told him once. _It is a showing of weakness, whether you are offering it or accepting it. If I ever hear of you accepting a bribe, my son, you will regret it, I assure you._

But Luke had no interest in being bribed; what he wanted right now was for Jarrell to be quiet and stop his fearful babbling. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the Twi'leks scrabbling to unlock the door and leave, and he let them. It was not them he was after.

"--_Please_ let me live, I'll give you anything you want, just--"

_Doesn't he ever shut up?_ Luke thought, starting to become vexed. Oh well, at least it was easy enough to quiet the man himself. And without further ado, he swung his saber in a wide arc, beheading the aide in one swipe.

Then, not even bothering to glance again at his handiwork, he left. He was done here.

--

"The Aduba III Senator's aide is dead, Lord Umber?"

"Yes, my master," Luke replied, kneeling, his head bowed.

"Give your full report, Lord Umber," the Emperor ordered, sitting back in his throne.

And Luke did, sparing nothing, not even the drunken alien and greasy human and how he dealt with them. In some very few reports to the Emperor, he omitted a few details, such as after the mission to Ord Mantell a year ago, but that was unnecessary here. He had done nothing worthy of censure.

Or at least, he hadn't thought so. "You let the Twi'lek females go?" the Emperor asked, and Luke carefully hid a wince. Obviously he shouldn't have.

"They were not my target, my master," Luke said quietly.

"They were witnesses," Palpatine returned, displeasure evident in his voice.

Palpatine didn't care about the witnesses, Luke knew bitterly. That was just an excuse. In the beginning, before the galaxy knew it had another Sith Lord, he'd even instructed Luke to let such witnesses escape, so they could spread rumors and build up his reputation. But now, Palpatine just wanted him to kill, even when it wasn't completely necessary.

"I will not make such a mistake again, my master," Luke said, and was glad that the pretense of respect let him keep his head bowed, so that Palpatine would not see the angry flashing of his eyes. A mistake, to let live people who had done nothing to either the Empire or him...it was disgusting. Even his father killed only those who offended him or threatened the Empire.

The Emperor considered him for a moment. "No, you won't," he agreed. "But as a reminder..." And Luke knew what was coming.

He stayed his ground as lightning flashed out of Palpatine's hands and enveloped Luke, running over Luke's skin and dashing pain into every nerve, though not enough to threaten permanent harm. It wasn't for very long, just a few seconds that lasted a lifetime, but when Palpatine pulled it back, Luke remained on his knees not only because that was what was demanded of him as the servant to the master, but also because he couldn't stand up.

Luke waited in silence for the tremors to stop, and for Palpatine to dismiss him. But the Emperor kept him waiting, even as he regained enough strength to stand and walk out the door under his own power. The silence grew between them and filled the room, and though Luke wanted to leave, to go greet Mara and wait for his father, he stayed where he was. He wasn't about to incur another punishment for leaving before Palpatine dismissed him.

Finally, Palpatine spoke. "Still," he said, almost kindly, "you have done well. Devotion is rewarded, my young lord."

Confused, but cultivating stillness of mind and body, Luke murmured, "Yes, my master."

"Look at me, young one," the Emperor commanded, and Luke looked up, the Emperor's hard yellow eyes catching his and holding. Luke wanted to gulp and look away, but didn't dare.

"You are devoted to me, aren't you, Lord Umber?" Palpatine crooned, still holding Luke's eyes with his.

Though there was no pressure on his throat, Luke felt like he couldn't breathe. "Yes, my master," Luke answered, feeling tendrils of the Force coming from Palpatine and reaching for his mind.

As he'd long ago learned how to do, he made his mental shields flexible and hid away his most private thoughts, building up strong barriers within barriers, just in case. The Emperor's Force tendrils hit his flexible outer shield and slid away. They came back, stronger and more numerous, and Luke weakened his shields just enough for Palpatine to be able to punch through without thinking it too easy.

It hurt when Palpatine broke through, not unlike the lightning of a few minutes ago. But Palpatine had done this before, and he would undoubtedly do it again, and so Luke was able to take the pain and use it, sending it through the Force to subtly redirect the tendrils' search away from his most tightly shielded thoughts.

After a few minutes of ransacking his mind, the Emperor left, oozing satisfaction that he'd found everything and not even realizing that there had been more he hadn't seen. If his head hadn't felt like it had been pounded repeatedly against the floor, and if he hadn't still been in front of his so-called master, Luke would have laughed. _So much for the all-powerful Emperor,_ he thought with a mental smirk.

The Emperor leaned forward in his throne, stretching out a hand to where Luke was still kneeling on the floor. "I am sorry about that, young one," he said, false regret dripping from his voice. "But I had to be sure of your loyalty." He dropped his voice, as if sharing a confidence. "Not all around me are as loyal as you, Lord Umber."

Luke stopped himself from blinking in surprise--_Is he referring to whom I think he's referring?_--and murmured, "They are foolish, my master."

"They are," the Emperor agreed. "You will help me dispose of traitors, will you not, Lord Umber?"

"I am at your service, my master," Luke replied evenly, despite the rapidly increasing beating of his heart. _There's no way he can know. It's just suspicion, that's all._ He tried to convince himself that Palpatine couldn't know for sure, but his heart wasn't listening, still beating rapidly.

"Good." The Emperor sat back. "You may go, Lord Umber."

Luke rose, and bowed, then turned and started to leave. But the Emperor's voice stopped him, just before he reached the doors.

"I believe you have started a friendship with my Hand," he said idly, as if it did not matter. Luke froze, then recovered himself and turned back to face the Emperor again.

"Yes, my master," he said, seeing no reason to deny it, not when the Emperor obviously knew.

The Emperor regarded him for a moment, the little smile on his face saying eloquently that there was something he knew that Luke didn't. "Her duties as my Hand would be compromised if she were to become pregnant. Do not get her with child," he advised. "Now go."

_What?_

His mind almost stopping in complete surprise, Luke bowed, turned, and left the room on autopilot, able to think only one thing.

_What?_

--

Luke was confused, and hated it.

He hated even more that the person to whom he had always gone when he was confused, his father, was away from Coruscant on assignment and far enough that they couldn't reach each other through their bond. Luke desperately wanted someone to confide in right now.

Though, admittedly, his father might not be the best person. He didn't, after all, know that Luke was friends with Mara Jade, much less the possibility of something more.

Except--_what_ possibility? Luke could honestly say that he had never thought of her in that way. He'd never thought of _anyone_ in that way. He'd never had the time.

He kept walking, and almost of their own accord, his feet started on the path to the corner of the thirty-second floor library where he would sit and think, sometimes with Mara and sometimes without her. He wasn't sure which of the two possibilities he would prefer right then; Mara was nice to talk to, and she'd actually _listen_ to him, but this was not a topic he wanted to tell her about.

He could imagine it now: "Mara, the Emperor told me not to get you pregnant. Any idea why he'd think that I might?"

He winced, and knew that he could never say something like that to his fiery friend. It would probably be just as much a shock to her, and sounded faintly accusing anyway. He couldn't be sure that it was she who had told the Emperor of their friendship, when they weren't even _really_ keeping it a secret. Their spot in the library was still open to the Palace, after all, and they'd seen others there before, others who might have informed the Emperor of the relationship.

Halfway from the throne room to the library, Luke stopped. He was thinking too much--the Emperor had probably just misunderstood their friendship and equated it to something he could relate to, like lust and desire, without the deeper emotions to go along with it. He was reading too much into the Emperor's statement.

He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and changed direction. He didn't want to sit in a library and think right then. He wanted to be _doing_ something, something active, something that would take his mind off thoughts that didn't make sense.

Fifteen minutes later, he walked through the doors of one of the palace's gyms. It wasn't the most exclusive, didn't have the best personal trainers and equipment, but Luke in his palace persona of navy lieutenant wouldn't have been able to afford such a gym's membership anyway. This one was quiet, its equipment was good enough, and it didn't break his cover.

"Nice to see you again, Lieutenant," the receptionist said cheerfully as Luke signed in. He gave her a perfunctory nod and, after a bit of preliminary stretching, headed over to his favorite apparatus, the uneven bars.

He chalked his hands for traction, and then jumped up to the higher bar, his back to the lower, catching the bars and hanging for a moment, his weight pulling his body down, stretching his arms and shoulder muscles. He hung completely still, without even trembling in effort, then closed his eyes and swung himself up.

He went over the bar, momentum carrying him up and around. Over and over, again and again, pulling his legs back and pushing them forward to continue the motion. Then he let go with one hand and flipped around to face the other way, catching the bar once more just as he flew over the top again.

He turned, and concentrated on nothing but the turning. He didn't need the Force for this. He'd used it at first, but then he'd seen other men, Force-blind men, do it all by themselves, and Luke had decided that he would do it that way, too. It was purely his ability holding him here now. Here, with just him and the bars and the chalk on his hands, the sweat beading on his face, the air rushing past him, he felt...content.

Then, just as he started down again and passed beneath the bottom of the bar, he let go and sailed to the lower bar, catching it and swinging over the top of that one.

It was an advantage to be short, here, and his gymnastics training was one of the few occasions during which Luke was glad of his height. Because of that, Luke spent much time in gymnastics, alternating between bars and rings, horse and floor and balance beam, and anything that would challenge him.

Gymnastics was entirely him, him and his body and his concentration, and on days like today, when he didn't want to think, didn't want to use the Force, it was a much better form of exercise than lightsaber practice.

Swinging over and over, muscles bunching and releasing. He lifted his hands, let his body carry him up and over the bar, then grabbed it again on his way down.

Turn.

Turn.

Let go one hand and turn over, then turn, turn, again.

Luke's world narrowed until there was nothing that existed in the world but him and these two bars and the sensations surrounding them. The chalk on his hands, the skin-warmed bar they were wrapped around, the perspiration on his forehead, and the air wiping it away.

He switched between the bars, back and forth and back and forth. His arms were getting tired, and his stomach muscles were protesting, but he didn't use the Force to replenish himself, and he kept going. Up and over and up and over, rhythm and strain becoming one and the same.

Then, just because he could, he ended it with a flourish, pushing off the high bar and flipping in the air until he landed on his feet.

It was the kind of gymnastics workout Luke loved, intense enough to numb his mind without unduly tiring his body. And he was content, a feeling that was getting increasingly rare. He was covered in sweat and he desperately needed a shower if he didn't want to start smelling soon, but he'd had a good workout and it felt great.

Those good feelings flew right out of his head when he turned and started to cross the floor to the showers--and saw Mara Jade, dressed in a leotard and sweat pants, hair pulled back in a tight braid, stretching on the mats in one corner. He hadn't known that she came to this gym, though it made sense, as her persona was about as affluent as his, and this was a good gym for people in their supposed income ranges.

In keeping with her own persona as a dancer, as soon as she'd finished her stretches, she moved into a dance routine. She dipped and turned, braid whipping behind her with every pirouette, arms and legs transitioning smoothly from one step to another.

He'd never watched her do something like this before, an activity where her inner gracefulness was displayed completely. Aside from that first mission where he'd barely seen her, he'd mostly just talked to her and walked with her. And while she had always moved with a definite fluidity, that was nothing compared to what he was witnessing now.

She was utterly beautiful, and Luke wondered for a moment at how he had never noticed it before.

Her eyes were closed, her face completely peaceful. She was all over the place, high and low, one moment snapping her foot up, and the next, sinking into a perfect split.

_How could I have ever thought her plain?_ Luke thought, entranced. He was momentarily glad that she was keeping her eyes closed, so that he might watch her without her knowing.

Her body whirled and dipped and flowed across her corner of the floor, and Luke followed her every movement with his eyes. His hair was still tousled and his sweat was drying on his skin, but he barely noticed. She had nearly every iota of his attention, and Luke wanted to keep it that way. He wanted to watch her forever.

Then her eyes snapped open, and Luke started, because she was looking directly at him, despite being across the floor. And almost before he knew it, she was right in front of him; he blinked and hadn't seen her move, and spared a wondering thought at how easily she seemed to rattle him, that he couldn't concentrate properly on something so necessary as always knowing others' positions in relation to himself.

"What are you doing here?" she asked quietly, a few wisps of hair loosened from her braid. Luke's hand twitched, and he resisted the urge to tuck the hair behind her ears.

"Working out," he replied with equal softness, and gestured to where the uneven bars were standing behind him. "I just came from a report to our master, and wanted to work out."

"By watching me?" she asked, wryly, raising an eyebrow.

Luke felt his ears grow warm at that, and thought he might have been blushing. _Blushing!_ he mentally groaned. _Have I no control?_ But it seemed he didn't, for cheeks grew warm as well at her continued gaze.

"I'd just finished, and I saw you," he said, willing the color in his cheeks to go down. But as her eyebrow remained quirked, he knew he must have failed. "It was a lovely routine."

She smiled, gently. "Thank you," she said. "I choreographed it myself." The wisps of hair floated around to frame her face, and Luke had to again restrain the urge to tuck them behind her ears, and perhaps let his fingers linger by her cheek.

"You did a good job," he told her, and then immediately wanted to kick himself. _A good job! Wonderful compliment, Skywalker. Could you have said anything more stupid?_

But she only said, "Thank you," again, and didn't seem to mind the inanity of his compliment.

They stood there for a moment, seemingly content to gaze at each other in silence. But Luke was growing increasingly aware of his sweaty and rumpled appearance, so he broke the moment and said, "I've just finished my workout, and I'm still sweaty. I was going to take a shower now, but later..."

She smiled at him again, and said, "I'll meet you in our usual spot."

Luke returned the smile, unaccountably glad that he would see her again, and soon. And though it took more effort to walk past her towards the showers than he thought it should, he felt her eyes on his back as he strode away, and kept smiling.

--

She was there, just as she said she would be. Luke didn't know why that simple fact suddenly made him so happy. Or maybe he did, and didn't want to think about it.

She nodded at him when he joined her, and asked, "Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?"

Brief images flashed through his mind--the Emperor's parting statement, the dance Luke had just witnessed, even his father when they'd talked about Palpatine and fear--but he didn't mention any of them. Instead, he shrugged.

"Nothing in particular," he said. "I just wanted to talk."

So they spoke of inconsequential things. He didn't mention their jobs or their master, and neither did she.

She talked of dance. "I had a choice," she said at one point. "My main cover could be concubine, or it could be dancer. I chose dancer."

"I'd choose the same," Luke replied, eliciting a laugh. He'd thought when he first talked to her that he liked her laugh, but he hadn't noticed how musical it was. He wondered for a moment what her singing voice was like.

Then she eyed him appraisingly, and Luke fought the urge to squirm and blush. "You'd probably be a pretty good dancer," she said, to Luke's surprise. "It's sort of like learning combat, in a way. You've got to be really aware of where your body is and how it moves...those kinds of lessons could carry over from fighting into dancing, or vice versa. I think you'd do well."

And Luke shuddered melodramatically. "Sith Lords do not dance," he told her, with pretended affronted dignity. Then he tried to imagine his father or Palpatine dancing, especially the way he'd just seen Mara do--Palpatine performing pirouettes, cowl and all, and his father leaping about with his cape streaming behind him--and he couldn't hold back the laughter.

"What?" she demanded, and soon she too was dissolved in mirth as he shared the image with her. He could feel her shock at his temerity, and her thought that such an image seemed awfully close to mockery, but the laughter won out, and he was glad it did.

He told her about Tatooine. "It's all sand and heat and sky," he said. "And there aren't any clouds, because there's not enough moisture in the air to make them. And because there aren't many cities, there's not much light pollution. Nights are beautiful, on Tatooine. You can see the stars so clearly, especially compared to here on Coruscant. It's amazing."

"It sounds gorgeous," she said, her chin resting in her palm, her elbow propped up on her knee. "I'll have to go there, someday."

"It's not all good," he told her, remembering. "There're two suns, and it's so damn hot and dry...there's practically no water. I'd never learned to swim or even taken a real water shower or a bath before I came here."

"Well, as long as you can keep clean..." she said dubiously, and he let a smirk flit on and off his face. She'd always preferred water showers to sonics.

"Sand gets _everywhere_," he said. "Especially where you least want it to be. My father hates sand."

"Is he from Tatooine too?" she asked, and Luke nodded.

"It's why I spent my childhood there," he replied. It had been the only place where he had been a child, really. He'd grown up quickly after he left. "My father still had family there, his step-brother and his wife. My Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru."

"What are they like?" Mara asked, and Luke thought for a moment.

"Weathered," he finally answered. "It's what life in the desert does to you, I suppose. And people on Tatooine tend to grow up like the desert around them, so that they're either harsh or steady or both. Uncle Owen's harsh and Aunt Beru's steady...they balance each other."

She scooted closer, so that she was only a couple inches away from him, and laid a hand on his arm. He fought to keep from blushing at the touch of her skin on his. "Do you miss them?"

"I see them sometimes, still," he replied. It was an evasion--his feelings for his aunt and uncle were mixed and complicated. He was always glad to see them, and yet always glad to leave. "My father lets me go home for visits."

The word _home_ had dropped naturally from his lips. _Do I still think of it that way?_ he wondered, and didn't know how to answer himself.

"Really?" she murmured. "I'm surprised the Emperor lets you. I would have thought he'd call them distractions."

"He does," Luke admitted. "But the Emperor allows it anyway. Father says it's because it would have been somewhat hypocritical not to let me see my aunt and uncle, since my mother would have lived with us had she survived, and family is family."

"Hmmm." The answer was noncommittal, and Luke wondered if she found the explanation as shifty and confusing as he did. The Emperor had never seemed one to care about keeping families together. Why his father didn't just say outright that he'd threatened the Emperor into it, Luke didn't know; but then, Luke wouldn't be able to tell that to Mara, personal servant of the Emperor that she was.

They spoke of other things, and it gave Luke the time to study her, and the new strangeness he was feeling that was centered around her.

_Do I like her?_ he asked himself, and the answer was an unequivocal yes. She was intelligent and had an engaging sense of humor, even if she could be quite acerbic at times. And she understood him and his position, probably better than any other girl he might meet would. She wasn't afraid of him.

_Do I want her?_ he asked himself next, and that was a harder question to answer. She'd grown up more since he first met her, and though the change had happened so gradually that he'd never noticed it going on, now that he could stop and look at her, plain would never again be a word he could use when thinking of her. She was pretty, but not beautiful, not quite. Striking, perhaps, was the word to use.

He'd been getting little shocks every time he looked at her, or when she touched him, ever since Palpatine had brought up the idea. And for a moment, he thought that those shocks had been due to Palpatine tampering with his mind somehow, but he'd checked, and found no trace of the Emperor left in his mind. He'd ask his father to check again, just to be sure, but for now it seemed that they truly were his reactions.

He looked at her, found himself following the curves of her lips as she talked, and immediately tore his gaze away. But then he was drawn yet again to her mouth; he found himself wanting to press his own mouth against hers, and then knew the answer to his question. Yes.

_Yes, I want her._

And he found himself wondering, _Have I always been attracted to her? How could I not have known before?_ It disturbed him that he hadn't known himself as well as he'd thought, if feelings like these could have been lurking out of sight.

But then all thoughts of Mara Jade flew out of his mind as he felt a familiar presence enter Coruscant's atmosphere, and he knew his father was finally home.


	6. 6

Disclaimer and notes in first chapter.

6

(_Father._) The word bloomed into his mind, and Vader felt his son's sure mental touch. (_I'm glad you're back._)

Though he was piloting the shuttle down, he didn't need complete concentration, and sent, (_I am glad to be back, my son_.)

(_Father..._) Luke sounded hesitant. Vader unconsciously sped up. (_There is something I need to talk to you about, when you get here,_) Luke said, finally.

That didn't sound good. But Luke didn't feel panicked... Vader reached out and touched his son's feelings. No, not panicked. Disconcerted, confused, and suspicious, but not panicked or any other flavor of that particular emotion.

(_I will be there soon,_) Vader replied, and hoped that his report to the Emperor would not go overlong. His son was making him very curious.

--

Luke was looking out the window when Vader met him, and didn't turn his head away even though he must have known that Vader was there. Vader joined his son and looked out the window as well, but there was nothing but Imperial City, and, off in the distance, the Manarai Mountains. Nothing either of them hadn't seen before.

"There was something you wanted to tell me?" Vader prompted, laying a hand on Luke's shoulder. Without turning to look at him, Luke nodded.

"The Emperor...might be onto us," he said quietly, and only then turned to face his father. Vader felt his heart skip a beat and hoped Luke was wrong; if Palpatine knew, he would _not_ be happy.

"What makes you think that?" Vader asked, to conceal his reaction.

"Something he said, when I reported to him after my last mission," Luke replied. His eyes were troubled, a sea at storm rather than clear blue skies. "He looked in my mind. I kept my true allegiances hidden, and he didn't find them. Then he said loyalty is rewarded, and that not everyone around him was as loyal as me."

"He could be trying to trick you into admitting something," Vader pointed out.

Luke nodded. "I know," he said. "And I think he's probably just suspicious...there's no way that he could know for sure. We know that we're not being monitored, and we've never discussed the plan where any of his spies could hear us."

"If one of his spies had reported us, the Emperor would not think you loyal," Vader said. "Are you sure that he does?"

"Yes. Or at least, as sure about my loyalty as someone as paranoid as he is can be. He rifled through my thoughts himself, and I didn't make it so easy that he'd suspect something was up. As much as I can, I've got him convinced."

Vader took his hand away, and turned to face Luke completely. "Very good, my son," he said, and Luke smiled, the storm in his eyes abating for the moment. "As for suspecting me," Vader continued, "I wouldn't be surprised if he did. I would actually be more astonished if he completely trusted me. Treachery is the Sith way, after all, and I would not be the first Sith apprentice to plot against his master, even after the Rule of Two was instated."

"You're just the first who's got an apprentice of your own to help you," Luke said wryly, and Vader smiled behind his mask, raising his hand and ruffling Luke's hair in a rare gesture of affection.

"Yes," Vader said, "and I am glad of it. There is no other I would have rule the galaxy with me but you, Son."

Luke looked at him, and Vader saw the warmth and regard in his eyes, and knew that Luke felt the same way. Palpatine was a fool, to have betrayed his old friendship with Vader as he had. If he'd cultivated it even after he'd gained Vader as an apprentice, his grip on the galaxy would be as an iron fist. Instead...

Well, instead there was this, Vader and his son and their plans. And Vader would never make the same mistake Palpatine had.

"All the same," Luke murmured, "I don't think I will be taking an apprentice of my own for a long time. I know now that the Rule of Two is there for a reason, and I would not want an apprentice of mine to betray you, Father."

Pride burst in Vader's heart, and he wanted to ruffle Luke's hair again, but gestures of affection must remain sparse, or they might forget themselves one day and show before Palpatine how much they cared for one another. In this, neither Vader nor Luke was a perfect Sith--he could no more betray his son than he could sprout gills and breathe underwater, and he knew that Luke would never betray him either.

It was an advantage, this trust, and one that Palpatine discounted. Luke would watch Vader's back, and Vader would watch Luke's, and they both would watch Palpatine's, but only waiting for the best opportunity to stick a lightsaber in it.

_Look for betrayal, and you will find it,_ Vader had once told Luke. And it was true. If Palpatine hadn't been so assiduous in looking for betrayal, and instead cultivated loyalty and trust in his closest subordinates, he would not have been betrayed. Vader understood this lesson, even if Palpatine didn't.

"Father," Luke said, bringing Vader's attention back to his son. He looked perfectly composed, apart from his eyes, which were roiling with emotions, so many that Vader couldn't even try to name them all. "Because Palpatine thinks I am loyal, and suspects you, do you think we should change the plan?"

"No," Vader said firmly. "You are the only one who can do this, Luke. Palpatine did us a favor by keeping you in the shadows. People know who I am, but they will not recognize Luke Skywalker. You can go where I cannot, and can be accepted where I would be shunned. You must be the one to make the initial overtures of friendship."

Luke shook his head. "I know that, but..." He seemed to struggle with putting his thoughts to spoken word. "You've been Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy for as long as there's been one. I've talked to some of the men in my lieutenant guise, and many are more loyal to you than to the Emperor. If you were to be the overt threat, and Palpatine does not look for betrayal from me, then I could be more effective."

"No," Vader said again. "If you were the one left behind as the Emperor's sole apprentice, then he would begin to trust you as little as he does me; it is inevitable. It is much better that I stay with him."

_But ah, my son, that is not the only reason,_ Vader thought, and kept the thought to himself. He just couldn't leave his son alone with the Emperor. Luke, who kept the light inside him alive with his selfless service to his father and sometimes to Palpatine, was less a Sith Lord than Vader was. But Vader was proud that Luke did not let his light interfere with his duties, and did not want his son to change.

The Emperor, unfortunately, likely would. And he _would_ change Luke, probably so much so that when the time came for the Skywalkers to take up their rightful place at the head of the galaxy, he would not recognize his son when he saw him again. Palpatine would not put up with Luke's compassion and his honor, his warmth and his desire for friendship. Palpatine would not care that Luke was a devoted user of the Dark Side as long as any hints of light emotions stayed.

It had taken Vader time, but he'd eventually realized that to eradicate the light in Luke would be to eradicate _Luke_ as well, and that he would not do. He owed it to Padmé, and he owed it to Luke himself. He cared about Luke, and he would not let anyone, much less Palpatine, twist and destroy his son.

In some of his more cynically introspective moments, Vader recognized that by keeping the light in Luke alive, he was making Luke weaker than he would have been if he'd truly embraced the Dark Side, and that this meant his son would have neither the inclination nor the ability to overthrow him. He also recognized that, completely aside from preserving Luke's personality, he would have wanted some light in Luke just for that reason. He never told his son about those thoughts.

Finally Luke, who had gone back to staring out the window, spoke again. "There's more, Father," he said hesitantly. "Not about Palpatine being suspicious of you, but something else he said in my report to him."

"Go on," Vader prompted when Luke paused.

Luke took a deep breath, and let it all out in one long exhale. "Do you know if Palpatine can tamper with my mind?" he asked. "Make me feel things I wouldn't otherwise?"

"Has he threatened to do so?" Vader demanded. He clenched his fists. _If you do anything to my son, Palpatine..._ Unbidden, the memory of his visions arose, Palpatine laughing in the background as Luke died, and Vader felt his anger rising.

Luke blinked. "No," he said. "But I don't think he would say something...he doesn't like to warn people if there's a chance they could thwart him. No, it's just..." He stopped and looked torn, as if he wasn't sure whether to continue or not.

"You can tell me, Son," Vader said, trying to make it easier for him. "You know you can talk to me about anything."

Luke smiled tightly, then the smile faded. "I know, and I appreciate it, but..." He ran his hand through his hair. "I think he might have, because immediately after he said something, I started feeling..." He trailed off and didn't finish the thought.

Vader decided to go back to the source of this vague conversation. "What did he say to you?" he asked, firmly, and _looked_ at Luke as if the look could draw out the answer.

Maybe it could. Luke turned red--_Is my son **blushing**?_ Vader thought in amusement--and looked down at his feet. Then he mumbled something that sounded like, "Tolme notgay marajay prenat."

Beneath his mask, Vader raised an eyebrow, a reaction he hadn't been able to get rid of even though no one had seen it for the past seventeen years. "Repeat that," he said, "and articulately this time."

Luke's blush deepened. "He told me to not get Mara Jade pregnant," he repeated, enunciating each word slowly and clearly.

That explained the blush. For all that Luke could be very wise for his age, and for all that he had seen and done things grown men would blanch at, his son could be very innocent at times. When Vader had tried explaining sex to his son four years ago, he'd thought the boy would explode from embarrassment, and, in the end, he'd thrust a few datapads at Luke and told him to read them.

"Is there any reason why he would say such a thing?" Vader asked, and though he knew Luke would not be able to see his raised eyebrow, he should be able to hear it in the arch tone Vader adopted briefly. Never mind that even the idea of Luke voluntarily spending time with the Emperor's Hand was ridiculous--not even Luke could be so heedless of his own safety and that of their plans as to befriend a girl who would betray him without a second thought.

"No!" Luke protested loudly, his blush subsiding not at all. "I've never even considered..." And Vader was treated to the novel sight of his son sputtering. He wanted to laugh, but didn't think that would be an appropriate response.

"But you think Palpatine might have planted the idea in your mind and tried to make you think you wanted to," Vader said, taking pity on his poor, innocent, blushing son.

"Right." Luke's blush finally started fading. "And while I don't think there's anything left of him in my mind, I just wanted to make sure that he couldn't do something like that."

"Not without you knowing," Vader told him. "And actually, considering that you are not weak-willed, most likely not at all. He could with untrained Force-sensitives, and even more easily with someone Force-blind, but not someone as well-trained and strong-willed as you."

"Oh." Luke sighed. "Well, that's a relief."

"Indeed." Vader considered his son. "But since we have established that these feelings are not because of Palpatine, would you care to explain?"

The blush came back, full-force. "Not particularly," Luke mumbled, but Vader just looked at him steadily until he gave in. He wasn't fooled. Luke wouldn't have started this conversation if he hadn't wanted to talk about it, no matter his show of reluctance. And too, if Luke truly hadn't wanted to say anything, he would stubbornly keep silent. He was quite good at being stubborn.

"Mara and I are friends," Luke said simply, and surprisingly. "It started not long after that first mission together."

"You mean the one where she was the catalyst that made you understand that the Emperor didn't trust you?" Vader said, pointedly. He would have thought that such an occurrence would make Luke avoid her, not befriend her. That was only the _logical_ thing to do, after all. Then again, his son had never been among the most logical of people, so perhaps this strange infatuation with someone completely loyal to the enemy made sense.

Luke shrugged. "He appears to trust me now, as far as it goes," Luke replied. "Besides, I can't blame her for following orders. It's not her fault. And I can talk to her."

"Surely you do not trust her," Vader said, and hoped it was true. The girl was one of Palpatine's best spies. She'd report everything Luke told her without thinking twice about it. Her master was foremost in her thoughts, and she would never begin a relationship with anyone without Palpatine's orders. Luke was sometimes innocent, but he couldn't be so naïve as to think otherwise.

"Not with everything," Luke said quickly. "I haven't told her anything about our plans..._those_ I'm sure she would go straight to Palpatine with. But..." He looked uncomfortable. "You're gone so often...I got lonely. And I know she has her own missions, but, well, it's nice having a friend. She's about my age, and we've got a lot in common...she's easy to talk to."

With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Vader realized it was too late to break his son of the obvious attraction. _Is this how Obi-Wan felt when I talked about Padmé, before the assassination attempts?_ he wondered briefly, before banishing the thought--his old life had no bearing on his current one, except that it had produced the person standing before him.

"It sounds like you are smitten," Vader said, a comment meant to be teasing, and instead resounding in uncomfortable truth. Luke sighed and did not blush.

"I think maybe I am," he said, and Vader could feel the shyness in those words, and the effort it took to say them and acknowledge their veracity.

It was a strange realization, that Luke could be falling in love with a girl, as he himself had once been in love. _My son is growing up._ Luke was almost a man now, was almost eighteen, just about a year younger than Vader had been when he'd gotten married. How had it happened so quickly? He wasn't the little boy who had clung to Vader's cloak on his first trip into outer space anymore.

And Luke looked like a man now, with a maturity to his face and features that hadn't been there even a year ago. He still wasn't tall, and likely never would be, but he carried himself as if he was, with confidence of body and spirit. It had happened right before Vader's eyes, but he hadn't truly been paying attention. And now he was faced with it, and almost didn't know what to do with the knowledge.

_Trust your son,_ something whispered inside him, something that echoed with his memories of Padmé.

Vader did, and because he did, he found himself saying, "I hope things go well for you, my son." Perhaps he was not giving Mara Jade enough credit for having a mind of her own. Still, she would bear watching. He would support his son, but he would keep watch. There was too much at stake for him not to.

The quiet glow on Luke's face, brought not by embarrassment but by happiness at his father's support, validated Vader's decision. "Thank you, Father," Luke said, still glowing. "I don't know that I'll be doing anything, but I am glad of your approval."

But there was more he had to say, though on a different topic. There were more serious things to speak of than Luke's infant love-life.

"Luke," he said, and something in his voice made the smile vanish off Luke's face as if it had never been. "Luke, you must be careful."

"With Mara?" Confusion warred with alarm on his son's face.

"No, not with her--well, yes with her," Vader corrected himself, a rare occurrence, "but beyond her. While I was away, I had a repeating vision." He didn't want to remember it, didn't want to remember that it had even existed, but Luke must be warned. He couldn't lose his son. "You died, and I believe Palpatine was the cause of your death."

Oh, how hard that had been to say. Death did not belong in the same sentence as a reference to Luke. Luke was _his son_, and he would not let him go.

Luke paled, but held himself together. "It's not guaranteed," he said softly. "You've told me before that no future's set in stone. It can be changed."

_You do not understand,_ Vader wanted to tell him. But he said, "I have had many visions before." As a child, dreaming of Jedi and marriage and Padmé at the head of an army, visions that had come to pass. And later, the ones of his mother and his wife. "They are unusually accurate."

"The future hasn't happened yet," Luke replied. "You don't _know_ that Palpatine will kill me."

"I do not," Vader agreed, "but we cannot discount the possibility. Be careful around him, Luke. Promise me you will be careful."

"I promise," Luke said, his word given without hesitation. And his son did not give his word lightly; he would keep his promise.

If only that would do any good.

"You may think that Palpatine does not suspect you," Vader continued, "but do not trust in that to keep you safe. He is a master of manipulation, and he always has his own agenda."

Luke touched his arm in reassurance. "Father, I know," he said. "And I'll be careful." His expression became concerned. "You should be, too. You're the one who will be staying with him, after all, and I'll be out of his reach soon enough."

Even as Vader acknowledged the truth of that, it wasn't enough to satisfy him. But then, he didn't think that he could truly count Luke safe until Palpatine was dead.

--

This could be done. He knew it could. He'd thought about it, and though it would perhaps be difficult to catch hold of something he could not see, there was no real reason why it couldn't work--even if he was, as far as he knew, the first person to try something like this. But though he couldn't see what he was doing, he knew that he didn't really need to.

The Force was with him here, perhaps even more than it was nearly any place else. The Force was with him, and there was something in its whisper that told him he wouldn't fail. Maybe it even wanted him to succeed, and that was why he could feel it so powerfully, here and now.

So he concentrated, and stepped.

Step. Step. Step. He kept his head up and his eyes straight ahead, and kept walking.

This was easy. He never would have thought it could be, but once he'd tried it, there it was. Once he got used to it, he didn't even need to concentrate that hard to keep it going.

_I'm really doing this._ Exultation bubbled up inside him, and he laughed aloud. _It's really working._

And, _This is amazing!_

Because it was. It was amazing and extraordinary and all the superlatives he could think of, and it was his. Something he had done, that he had not been taught how to do but had figured out on his own. His _own_.

He'd never felt more free.

"What are you doing?" a familiar voice asked, bringing him back to himself.

Luke turned around and grinned at Mara, _grinned_, and flung his arms out to encompass the world. "What does it look like?" he replied, and couldn't keep the joy off his face and out of his voice. His experiment was working, and Mara was here, and witnessing it. Nothing but joy existed right now.

Mara's mouth was open as she watched him, and in her eyes flickered a myriad of things--awe, confusion, wonderment, fear. "It looks like I'm dreaming," she said. "Because I can't imagine that someone can do this in real life. Is this a Force-thing? I've never seen the Emperor do it..."

His grin turned impish, especially at the confirmation that not even someone as learned in the Force as Palpatine was had done this before, and for a moment, he wondered at himself for how happy he was. "You're not dreaming," he told her. "Not unless I am, too, and I'm not."

"Are you sure?" She looked doubtful, and still confused and amazed.

"As I ever am," he replied, and walked closer to him. With a strange sort of longing on her face, she looked like she wanted to come out to meet him, but didn't dare.

"You're _walking on air_," she breathed, as if it only just hit her then what he was doing. "_How_ can you be doing that? Some sort of self-levitation?"

He looked down, a few meters still between him and the grass. This garden, with its set of low walls and screens of trees, had been perfect for his experiment; more so because rarely did anyone come here this early in the morning. But Mara somehow always seemed to find comfort in the same places he did, like this garden and the gym and their library, and so he wasn't surprised to see her. He'd felt her near, anyway, with that awareness of her that he'd cultivated ever since Ord Mantell. Perhaps she had the same awareness of him, despite being barely trained in the Force, and that was how she so often found him.

"No, not self-levitation," he answered, and looked back up at her. "But sort of the same principle. Telekinesis, only instead of lifting or moving something, you keep it from moving. I've stopped the air molecules and bunched them all together to make something almost solid, and it's not that hard to keep them frozen."

"What's the point?" she asked, her eyes still on where he stood, two meters in midair. "Standing on air...you could do the same thing with levitation, couldn't you?"

"Not quite," Luke replied. "This is solid for _everyone_, not just me. Go on, touch it. You'll see."

Throwing a wary glance at him, she moved forward and reached out. Then, acting on sudden impulse, Luke grabbed her hand instead of letting it touch the frozen air, and pulled her up beside him so that she could feel the air beneath her feet as well. Their faces were only centimeters apart, and she stared at him, her eyes wide in obvious surprise. He was just starting to wonder if he was imagining the red tint to her cheeks when she pulled back and jumped down, leaving him alone in the air once more.

"I still don't understand what the point is," she said, glancing at his feet, standing on nothing. "You can levitate other people, too. Why would they need something like this?"

"Easier," he explained, and shrugged, feeling slightly put out that she couldn't just let go of the analyzing and be happy for him and his discovery. But it was Mara, always trying to understand, and his exasperation vanished into the air beneath his feet. "This way I only have to keep my mind on one thing--creating and holding the path--rather than everything I have to lift. And if necessary, I can levitate the frozen air molecules, and take anyone on the path wherever I want them to go."

There was silence for a moment, then she asked, "How can you find something so small and keep hold of it?"

"Size doesn't matter," he told her. "What matters are your will and your power. As long as I spare some concentration to keep the molecules together, I probably have enough energy to stay up here for hours."

"Would you?" she asked. "Would you stay up there for hours?"

"Why not?" Luke replied. "I'm not needed anywhere right now, and I like it up here. There's a freedom in denying limitations, and I'm reveling in it." He smiled at her, bright and full of the Force, and she didn't return it.

"Why not, indeed," she murmured. "What about limitations that can't be defied?"

"That's no fun," Luke said playfully. Freedom suited him, he decided. His mind was clear and unclouded, and he felt like a little boy on Tatooine again, running nearly wild under the desert suns. It was almost as if the past nine years hadn't happened.

"Fun isn't always the point," she said almost sharply. "Keep your feet on the ground, Skywalker. That'll do you more good."

Surprised, he let himself fall to the ground with a thump, bent knees absorbing the shock of impact. Where did that come from? Some days he thought he was starting to understand her, and then she turned around and was almost a stranger again.

"Talk to me, Mara," he said suddenly. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," she said, and turned away.

"Mara--" He reached out, but she hunched away from him.

"I said nothing's wrong!"

Once, and not even that long ago, he would have let it go with just that. Once, but not now. He couldn't let it go, not when he wanted to know her so much.

And so he asked her. He didn't have to, he knew. Though her shields were getting better, her strength still wasn't equal to his, and he could go in and find out for sure what was bothering her.

He could kiss her, and make sure that she didn't run away. He could hold her in place and do whatever he wanted to her, and she couldn't stop him.

He could do that. He trembled with the possibilities of what his power would let him do--and trembled too because he would not allow himself to do them.

By doing that, he would gain her for the moment and lose her for all time.

"Talk to me, Mara!" he repeated when she said nothing, and stepped close enough to her to lay his hands on her shoulders, though her back was still turned towards him. She stiffened in his grip, but did not move away.

Then she turned, and he found himself not even a foot away from her. "You're not free," she said, so low he almost couldn't hear it. "I'm not free. Where does fun come into our lives?"

Luke listened to her and found she had surprised him again. He hadn't expected her to think of herself as chained; she had always exhibited a fierce gladness at serving her Master, and never gave any indication that she might have wanted something more.

"Why?" he asked, and she seemed to understand him better than he understood her, because she knew what he meant.

"It was you," she said, her eyes catching his, so earnest. "You and your loneliness...I felt it, though you probably didn't even know you were projecting." He hadn't. "And I thought, you were a Sith Lord, with almost my same duties. If you could be feeling unhappy and stifled..." She trailed off.

"Was I really projecting that much?" he asked softly, quietly amazed at how much of his emotions she seemed to have picked up so quickly. How had that happened? He hadn't thought his shields were down...it was strange how often this girl could surprise him, but that was maybe one of the things he liked about her. She seemed to look into him and know him, though he didn't know how.

She nodded, and didn't break her gaze. She seemed to be trying to tell him something, but it was getting lost along the way and he couldn't hear her properly.

"It made me look at myself," she continued then. "At what I was doing, what I was feeling. About how much of my life was mine and how much was Palpatine's." She referred to him informally, using his given name--had she ever done that before? Luke didn't think so. "I asked myself questions, and didn't like the answers."

_Be careful,_ his father's voice told him, echoing in his ears. He didn't want to be, because this seemed everything that he wanted, his best friend becoming disillusioned with Palpatine, but he couldn't trust it. His father told him to be careful, and Luke had felt that he was afraid, so Luke would listen.

She looked sincere and she felt sincere, but could he trust it? He wanted to, so much, but that was perhaps a point against it, because if this was a plot of Palpatine's, the bait would not be so good if it wasn't sweet.

"And then I got to know you better," Mara murmured. "I'd wanted to, ever since I met you, the first person my age to know exactly who I was. I couldn't let it stop, after Ord Mantell, not without trying."

"I'm glad you did," he whispered, and decided to trust, at least a little. Back in the beginning of this friendship, he'd recognized that life was nothing without risk, and was that not still true even now? "I felt the same, but I wouldn't have taken the first step...I'm second in line for the Imperial throne, and my father told me to always maintain distance and dignity."

A shudder ran through Mara when he mentioned his nearness to the throne, a shudder that Luke only felt because his hands were still on her shoulders. He knew he should move them, but he didn't want to, and she didn't seem to mind.

"If the Emperor and your father were gone, you would be Emperor," she said, very quietly. "Do you ever think about that?"

He shivered, an unconscious echoing of Mara's shudder, and it traveled down his arms to his hands and Mara's shoulders. "I try not to," he told her, with equal quiet. "It's treason. And I don't want my father to die."

She nodded. "I know," she said, and he rather thought she did. "You love him."

A shock, running straight down his spine. Love. What a word to choose--exactly the word that he and his father avoided using. So many implications, and so many that he didn't understand. Love was...love was what? Care and sacrifice and trust and loyalty...could it even be defined as easily as that?

Luke didn't know. He rarely used the word love, because he didn't know what he was describing. But when it came to his father...

"Yes," he said. "I love him."

And he did. He always had, even when "Father" had just been an abstract, a name without a face and personality to match it to. As a child he'd wanted his father, and growing up had found him, and actually found _him_, the person beneath Darth Vader's mask, and there was so much more to him than the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"I wish..." Mara began, with an aching wistfulness, and did not go on.

But in this Luke understood her, or at least he thought he did. "I wish, too," he said, hands tightening on her shoulders briefly. _I wish you had someone who is to you what my father is to me,_ he thought, finishing the words they'd both left unsaid. _Palpatine sure as hell doesn't count._

Then Mara seemed to shake herself, and stepped out of his hold on her shoulders. "Wishes are useless," she said, and a shutter came down in her eyes, so that he couldn't see anything of her anymore, whether he understood what he was seeing or not.

"Not useless," Luke protested, and his arms fell to his sides, as if they didn't know what to do with themselves anymore when they weren't holding Mara near him. "They give us something to aspire to."

"What if we can't reach whatever we're wishing for?" she countered, and shook her head in anticipation of his answer. "Some things are impossible. Some limitations shouldn't be defied."

_Are we talking about the same thing?_ Luke wondered uneasily, watching her as she turned her head away so that she was looking at the edge of the garden. _What kind of limitations is she thinking of? Not finding people to call family, surely...something to do with Palpatine?_

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't still try," he said. He wanted to reach out again, but he didn't think she would let him hold her so easily this time. She was a rose, was Mara Jade, pricking you without a thought if you didn't know how to handle her. And though there were many things about her that Luke didn't understand, he was learning, and maybe someday soon she wouldn't make him bleed.

Mara turned to look at him again, something hard and sharp in her gaze, and her eyes narrowed. "Keep your feet on the ground," she said once again. "You can't fix everything yourself, you know."

And before he could say anything else, she left, and he knew that she would not answer if he called after her.


	7. 7

Notes and disclaimer in first chapter.

7

"Walk with me, my friend," the Emperor commanded, and though Vader wanted little more than to finish the report and be out of Palpatine's presence, he fell into step beside his master with no outward show of reluctance.

"It has been a long time since we have talked, Lord Vader," the Emperor continued. "Tell me, what do you think of this?" He spread out one arm in a grand sweeping motion, indicating the battle station around them.

"I think it is almost ready to be unveiled to the galaxy, my master," Vader replied, and hid his inner revulsion.

The Emperor laughed, a sound that had once been inviting and was now twisted, much like the man himself. "Why do you play these games, my friend?" he asked, though it seemed a rhetorical question to Vader.

Still, he said, "What games, my master?" He mentally snorted. As if he didn't know.

"Don't play ignorant, Lord Vader, it doesn't suit you," Palpatine said, almost sharply, chastising. "Surely you don't expect that I have forgotten what you think of this battle station?"

"No, my master," Vader replied. He didn't expect Palpatine to forget anything; underestimation was not a weakness of his. "But my disapproval does not matter, and the Death Star _is_ almost ready to be revealed."

The cowl turned toward him for a moment. "You're right," he commented. "Your disapproval does not matter. See that you remember that."

_Fool,_ Vader thought, beneath the strongest shields he had. _You have become complacent. Do you think I will forget the insults you pay me? I have never been inconsequential, and it is impossible for you to pretend I am when both of us remember that it was you who sought me as an apprentice, not I who sought you as a master. You need me more than I need you._

But he only said, "Yes, my master."

As they walked, people and droids dodged out of their way; no one wanted to interfere with the Emperor and his second-in-command's visit to the nearly-completed Death Star.

"And how is"--a brief pause--"your apprentice?"

What was the pause for, Vader wondered briefly. Had he been about to say something else? _Your son_, perhaps?

"He is well, my master," Vader said, willing to pretend for the moment that Palpatine had nothing but Luke's well-being at heart.

"Good," Palpatine said, and again, "Good."

They walked in silence a few more steps, and a troop of stormtroopers turned the corner in front of them. The stormtroopers stopped and saluted, then marched past when the Emperor nodded at them.

"He is an adult now, isn't he?" the Emperor continued idly, once they were completely alone, with even mouse droids avoiding them.

"He is eighteen," Vader affirmed, without any idea of where the Emperor was taking this and not liking that fact.

"Perhaps it is time he received a home of his own," Palpatine said thoughtfully. "He might like a suite by himself in the Imperial Palace." _Closer to me_ was the unspoken comment.

"He is fine where he is," Vader said as firmly as he could without sounding like he was directly contradicting his master. "He has never indicated that he wished to move out of my home."

"He wouldn't," Palpatine said, with poisoned-sweet kindness. "You are his master, after all." _And we know what is due a master,_ his voice seemed to say. "But he is not a child any longer. He does not need to remain in his father's home."

"He is still very young," Vader said, unable to find a polite and unassuming way of saying _I'm not letting you get your hands on my son_. At least when Luke was living with Vader, Vader would be able to see him at least as often as the Emperor did. But if Luke was living in the Imperial Palace, his time with his son would be drastically reduced.

It would be disastrous for their plans, which were so close to coming together. If Luke were to move to the Imperial Palace, then they would no longer have an excuse not to meet in the Imperial Palace, where Palpatine could watch them; not even Vader knew of all the ways in which he had the Palace watched, and, knowing Palpatine, the Force would not be a solution to all of them. Though they could speak mind-to-mind, there was no guarantee that Palpatine, who was admittedly very learned in the ways of the Force, did not have some way of overhearing them, and they would have to keep conversations where they discussed anything important to a minimum.

"Sentimentality, Lord Vader?" It sounded like the warning it was. "He is not that young."

"I will speak with him," Vader hedged, trying to think of a way out of this.

"I am sure he will choose wisely," Palpatine said, milder now that he seemed to have gotten his way. "He is as much my loyal servant as you are, is he not, Lord Vader?"

"...Yes, my master," Vader said, and thrust back a spike of anger. He couldn't wait until he no longer had to deal with this presumptuous old man. _Loyal servant, indeed._

But he had his part to play, and he would play it.

--

Their home library again, and Luke curled up in a stuffed armchair with a datapad held in front of him, looking as young as Vader had protested that he was, not so long ago.

"It's almost ready, isn't it?" A sigh, and a few clicks of typed keys later, Luke's full attention was on him. Vader sat down in a chair across from him.

"It is," Vader said heavily. "Within a few months it should be ready for testing."

"He's not going to be satisfied with blowing up an uninhabited moon or planet, is he?"

"It is not likely." Vader felt weary, down to his bones. "But whatever he chooses as the target, we can turn it to our advantage. The people will not be happy when they learn of the planet-destroying battle station. Palpatine thinks that it will make them too afraid to do anything, but they can be led instead to focus that fear into rebellion."

"Which is where I come in."

It was not a question, but Vader nodded anyway. "Do you think you can do it, without suspicion?" He'd asked it before, but the answer might have changed.

"Yes." Luke sat straight up, no longer slouched in the chair. "I can't guarantee that there won't be any suspicion, of course, but I don't think I'll be found out. Though I don't know that it would matter if I were. They'll have to find out sooner or later," he added. "And besides, we all want the downfall of Palpatine, anyway."

"The Rebels want more than that," Vader pointed out. "Try to make them allies, but be aware of their true purpose. It does not entirely coincide with ours."

"It will," Luke said, with the confidence of youth. "Much of what they are protesting, such as the slavery and the anti-alien bias, you've already told me that you intend to abolish. They can be brought to our side."

Vader shared his son's confidence; the Force was with them, and it would bring their dreams to pass. He just hoped that his _own_ dream would not be so brought--his son would be in a very dangerous position, and would be publicly betraying Palpatine. Not many survived the Emperor's rage when he caught them again.

But he'd already told Luke to be careful, and he wouldn't say it again. His son had either already taken it to heart, or wouldn't at all. It was out of Vader's hands, for the moment,

And now it was time to bring up at less pleasant topic. "The Emperor thinks that you should move into the Imperial Palace," he said, and Luke blinked.

"Why?" he asked simply.

"He says it is because you are growing older and no longer need to live with your father," Vader told him. "I think it is because he wants his influence on you increased and mine decreased."

Luke nodded, taking that in. "Refusing isn't an option, is it," he said, sadly, as if he already knew the answer, and he did.

"No." Vader had his own regret. "He definitely implied that refusing is not an option."

Luke sighed. "Well, at least I'll not be there long anyway," he said. Vader's regret didn't lessen, though--_It's so soon!_ something inside him cried. _I've only had nine years with him, and soon he'll be gone into the galaxy, where I can't watch over him so easily..._

Vader didn't want to let go, but he knew he had to. For the good of the galaxy, because it needed someone stronger as the Emperor...and Luke would come back to him. Vader would make sure of that.

But if this was all that he could have until the fruition of his plans, then he would at least have it, and have Luke as long as he could. Mental conversations, as fulfilling as they could be, were nothing to talking and planning face-to-face, but after this, they would have to suit.

"What were you reading?" he asked, determinedly making conversation. Luke smiled at him, as if he knew what Vader was doing, and they talked about books.

--

His new quarters were at the top of the Imperial Palace, only a few levels below the Emperor's main floor. The top, where only the most highly ranked people were allowed to have suites. It was an honor to be placed here.

It was also an honor that Luke could have done without, and would have preferred it that way. He didn't want to live any closer to Palpatine than he had to--even here the Emperor's Darkness, more deep and oily and sickeningly sweet than his father's, permeated every room.

Luke was not looking forward to sleeping here, though night was falling rapidly. It felt like he would suffocate if he didn't concentrate on breathing, and even opening all the windows in his suite didn't help. It was stifling.

Abruptly, he turned and walked out of the room. The presence was still there in the hallway, but it seemed muted somehow, as if it was concentrated in Luke's suite and just leaking out into the corridor. Luke thought that might very well be the case; the Emperor had apparently wanted him here, so it made sense that he would have some sort of means of...what? Controlling, watching, influencing Luke?

He wandered the halls, in search of something though he did not know what. The silence was heavy, not even the whisper of his passing lifting it at all. There was no one around--was he the only one on this floor? It wouldn't surprise him: Palpatine wouldn't want some Moff or Governor to see him and wonder who he was and maybe find out--but it made him feel like a ghost, searching deserted corridors for people he would not find.

The hallway was as lavishly decorated as his suite, with crystal vases holding rare flowers on marble stands, gold and silver filigree on elaborate carvings, paintings in gilt frames, and Luke wanted nothing more than to tear it all down and go back to his father's sensible and simple style. His father didn't care about wealth and thought showing it off was pointless, and Luke had grown used to the lack of ornamentation.

It was strange, but Luke was already missing his father. He'd seen him just earlier that day, and they both were still on Coruscant, but never had they seemed so far apart. And he was tempted to touch his father and talk to him, but he resisted. He could survive a few months of being directly under Palpatine's gaze, and he would be gone soon anyway. He didn't need to go calling after his father like a child.

He sighed. Surely there was someone else who lived here--he felt lingering echoes of another presence, and yes, now he felt someone getting closer, someone familiar though shielded--

"What are you doing here?" a voice asked, and Mara Jade stepped out of an alcove, a small datapad held in one hand.

"Do you live here?" he asked, somehow not surprised that it was she. She seemed to follow him everywhere else.

"Yes, just down the hall." She jerked her chin to point the way he had just come from. "Why are you up here?"

He smiled wryly. "I live here now, also down the hall. I was just exploring a bit."

She blinked at him. "I thought you lived with your father."

He shrugged. "The Emperor decided that I was too old to live with a parent, and graciously offered me a suite in the Imperial Palace." He wondered if she caught the sarcasm; by the way her eyes flickered momentarily, he could tell she had. "Does anyone else live here?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "This is where the Emperor puts high-ranked people he doesn't want others to know about."

"Well, we both certainly fit into that group," he commented sardonically. "You're sure there aren't any others?"

"I've lived here for as long as I can remember, and I think I would know if there was anyone else," she replied tartly. "Trust me, there's no one else here."

_No one else here._ Luke's breath caught a moment as the implications hit his brain. No one else meant he and Mara were alone, with a whole floor to themselves. And this the girl whom he had...developed feelings for.

_Is Palpatine testing me?_ The thought came with a sudden alarm, though Luke hoped none of it showed in his eyes. _He told me not to get her pregnant, so he knows about my feelings--he knew even before I did. Is this a test? If it is, what's the right answer?_

_Does it even matter?_

Looking at Mara, he decided that it didn't. He was almost done, anyway, done with Coruscant and Palpatine, and, yes, done with Mara. He doubted that he'd see her much, after he left, or that she would want to see him, even if she wasn't as happy with the Emperor as she once had been. She wouldn't betray Palpatine as he had done, was doing. Loyalty defined her.

The plans were in motion, and he couldn't--wouldn't--stop them. This was too important. If it came down to choosing between Mara and his father, he knew what the decision would be.

But that didn't meant that he shouldn't try to take what he could get. If their friendship would be over in a matter of months, then this wasn't as risky as it might otherwise have been, but he wanted it to work. Oh, how he wanted it to work.

"Luke?" Her voice was sharply defined, and when he focused on her, everything about her was sharply defined as well. Her hair, and the way it fell in waves past her shoulders when left loose. Her eyes, chips of green like life. Her face, pale with its light dusting of freckles. Her body, hidden beneath her clothes but the curves of her obvious just the same.

Her voice rose, as if she'd just become aware of his regard and was uncomfortable. "Luke, why are you looking at me like that?"

He didn't let up his gaze. "Guess," he said softly.

"You've gone insane," she suggested, and shivered. "The honor of being up here is too much for you."

He laughed lightly. "Wrong." He took a step closer, and she didn't seem to notice.

"There's something wrong with your eyes?"

"Nope." Another step.

"Then it's--" He took another step, and he was right in front of her. She looked up at him, and before she could step back he grabbed her upper arms, but gently.

"Mara," he breathed, bringing his face closer to hers, watching her eyes grow smoky and hazed. She was gazing at him, too, and she wasn't moving away, even though his grip was so gentle on her arms that she could have broken it if she wanted to. The datapad in her hand slipped, unnoticed, to the floor, where it lay, ignored.

"Luke--" Her voice faltered as he angled his head, eyes intent on hers.

"Don't think," he told her. "Thinking's overrated."

Then he kissed her. Her lips were smooth and soft and warm, and he liked the feel of them, against his own. He'd never kissed anyone before her, but then he'd never wanted to, and he thought he might not want to kiss anyone after her either.

She was still for a moment, stiff in his grip and her eyes looking up at his with a startled flickering. But then she closed her eyes and leaned forward until his arms slid around her to wrap around her back. She raised her own arms to close behind his neck and hold him nearer to her. Her lips pressed against his as much as his pressed against hers.

The small part of his mind that wasn't involved in the kiss seemed to wonder that she was returning it, but that was unimportant compared to the reality that was between them. His lips on hers, hers on his, not even air able to get between them, and air was unnecessary compared to her mouth. Force-users could go longer without breath than regular people anyway, and what an advantage it was.

She pulled back first, just a bit, and opened her eyes to look intently into his. Whatever she saw in them made her smile, a curve of lips that he could sense rather than see or feel, and then she closed the distance between them again.

This kiss was rougher, without the wondering newness of the first. Her mouth opened to his, and his followed suit without a thought. Teeth clacked together, jarring enough for Luke to pull back slightly, but then he pushed forward again, because it wasn't enough. He pulled her close against him and her arms tightened around his neck, pulling his head nearer to hers.

They pulled back at the same time, as if by unspoken mutual agreement. But they stood there, still, their arms wrapped around each other. He looked at her, and she looked back at him, and they both smiled.

"I've wanted that for a long time," she confessed, her voice barely above a whisper.

Luke tilted his head, bemused. "Have you?" he asked. "I didn't know."

"I didn't want you to," she said with wry good humor, and leaned forward to rest her head on his shoulder. Her forehead nestled against his neck. "Where do we go from here?"

"Where do you want to go?" he replied. _I know what I want. I'll be gone soon enough, and I want to remember more than just her kiss._ But he wouldn't force her. He could, but he wouldn't. It would be so much sweeter if she were willing.

She lifted her head. "I can guess what you want," she said, but she didn't frown at him, and didn't seem opposed. "But I've never..."

He kissed her swiftly. "Neither have I," he told her. "But would you want to, with me?"

Her gaze was surprisingly clear. "I wouldn't want to without you," she said, sending a warm shiver down his spine. "I'm just...nervous, I guess. But...I do want to."

They stared at each other for a moment, the decision made but not acted upon, for neither quite knew what to do next. Finally Mara took charge, slipping out of his embrace and taking him by the hand. "Come," she said, and tugged, and he followed her to her suite and inside. The door closed behind them.

--

Luke woke up in an unfamiliar place, with something warm right next to him and shallow breath washing over his face.

His eyes snapped open just as memory reasserted itself, and he forced his tensing body to relax. He knew how he had gotten here. He glanced down slightly, at the red-gold hair spread out across the pillows, and the face beneath it. Mara was sleeping peacefully, her mouth just slightly open, and something in Luke warmed at the sight of her.

(_Have an interesting night, my son?_) his father's voice said in his mind, and Luke almost started in surprise.

(_Father! You didn't feel that, did you?_) He _knew_ he'd been shielding, that he hadn't forgotten something that basic...

(_You were shielding,_) his father reassured him. (_You were, in fact, shielding more than normal, which I admit piqued my curiosity. Though periodically your concentration faltered for a moment, and I was gifted with some...interesting feelings along our bond._)

Luke mentally groaned and buried his face in his pillow. (_I'd ask you if you were serious, except that I know you're never not. I'm sorry, Father._)

(_Do not worry about it,_) Vader sent in reply. (_But I think that next time I see you, there are a few things that I should show you, such as how to block emotions from coming down the bond even when you are...distracted._)

(_Father!_)

A pulse of amusement, then the feeling-flicker along their bond changed. (_I hope she treats you well, my son,_) Vader said. (_For her sake as well as yours._)

(_Don't worry about me,_) Luke replied. (_I'll be all right. She's not going to hurt me._)

(_She had better not._)

And before Luke could reply with another attempt to soothe his father's overprotectiveness, Vader closed off their connection and was gone.

He lifted his head from the pillow and looked again at the girl sleeping right next to him, and smiled involuntarily. She was beautiful, especially like this, completely naked underneath the sheets--though she looked good with clothes on, she looked even better with them off.

Then her eyes fluttered open and she focused on him, and her hand worked itself free of the blankets to reach up and cup his cheek.

"Good morning," she murmured, a smile twitching at her lips.

"Hullo," he said, feeling suddenly shy, though he thought he shouldn't be; they'd gone too far for shyness now.

"Did we really...?" She was blushing, and more than just her cheeks turned red, Luke noted with a strange embarrassment mixed with amazement.

"Unless you've got another explanation for why we're naked in your bed," he replied wryly, and they both laughed, a light, carefree sound. He still liked her laughter.

But then she quieted down, and looked at him with something in her eyes, something that he couldn't quite identify but looked like it might be wonder. "I never thought I'd have this," she said, and her hand moved from his cheek to his chest. "I've wanted it for a long time, but I thought..."

She trailed off, but Luke couldn't leave it at that, not after she said nearly the same thing after their first kiss. "How long?" he asked.

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and the corners of her mouth twitched. "Would you believe me if I said ever since we met?" she replied, apparently in a rare sharing mood--but then, they'd shared a lot last night.

He couldn't help but feel surprise. "You can't be serious," he said. Was it possible, that she'd wanted him for longer than he'd wanted her? He never would have thought it.

Her gaze dropped. "Well, not _this_ precisely," she corrected, and waved a hand to encompass their position. "But right from the start, I was attracted to you. I never thought I'd be able to do anything about it, though."

"Because I'm a Sith Lord?"

"That, and because I'd had no idea that you would feel the same." She chuckled, and stretched slightly. "For once I'm glad about being wrong."

Luke mulled it over, and finally some things about Mara began to make sense. "And that's why you approached me, in the library?" he asked. "I couldn't figure it out. I was afraid you just wanted to get close to me to spy on me, but then I thought that couldn't be it."

She didn't need to ask whom she'd spy on him for. "Right," she said. "I thought that I might as well start somewhere, and hope that what happened on Ord Mantell wouldn't color things. You didn't seem happy with me after I shot that man."

Did she even know her victim had been a Jedi, or had she just been ordered to shoot whoever Luke was fighting? But it didn't really matter and he wasn't going to ask; even though it had happened years ago now--had it really been that long, since he first met her? It didn't seem like it could be--he didn't want her to get suspicious. Maybe she was beginning to resent Palpatine's control over her life, but he couldn't take the chance. Besides, not even his father knew that the Jedi had still been alive when Mara shot him.

"I wasn't happy," he said, "but it wasn't you I was unhappy with. You were just following orders." His tone implied the focus of his displeasure, but she didn't say anything about that.

She reached up, brushed a few strands of hair away from his forehead. "What about you?" she asked. "How long?"

"Not as long as you," he said, and added, "Though I did want to be friends with you, once I met you. No, remember the day we met in the gym?"

"You watched me dance," she murmured, and understanding lit her eyes. "That's why you were watching? I'd wanted it to be that, though I tried to think of other things it could have been. I didn't want to get my hopes up."

The puzzle pieces that were Mara Jade began to fit together, but there was still another he hoped to decipher. And she was more generous now than usual, sharing things with him that he knew she would never have shared before, so maybe she would answer this for him.

"Mara," he said, and touched her wrist. She looked at him. "That day a couple weeks ago, in the garden. Why were you so angry?"

She smiled at him, wistfully. "Not everyone can defy gravity so easily," she whispered. "And not all of us are free to try. The ground isn't necessarily the only thing gravity pulls us towards. If you could escape one kind of gravity, maybe you could escape another, and I can't even--" She stopped, as if unwilling to say more, but Luke understood. For maybe the first time, he understood.

He slid his arms around her and pulled her closer to him. She fought for a moment, said sharply, "I don't need to be coddled. Just because I'm telling you certain things doesn't mean--" but he looked at her, just _looked_ at her, and she sighed and relaxed in his embrace, and even brought her arms up to wrap around him.

"I don't coddle," he murmured into her ear as their bodies pressed close together. "Comfort's not the same thing. Needing it doesn't make you weak."

"What do you know?" she retorted, but without any real ire. But she was still ill at ease with being comforted, or with the idea of needing that comfort, and he decided to share something with her.

"When I found out who my father was, I was devastated," he said, closing his eyes and remembering that day so many years ago now.

"Why?" Mara asked, lifting her head from where it had been tucked beneath his chin and looking at him. "He's the second-most powerful person in the galaxy."

"And I just saw him kill two people right in front of me," he told her. "They were Jedi, but they were trying to protect me, from him. Everyone thought I needed protecting from him. They thought he would kill me, and convinced me of the same thing."

"But...you're his son." She was confused, and he didn't blame her. "Why would they think he would kill you?"

"I may be his son, but he's still a Sith Lord," he reminded her. "They--the Jedi, and my aunt and uncle--couldn't have known that he still cared about having family. Remember how I told you once that Palpatine didn't want me to be trained, because there are only supposed to be two Sith at a time? For all the Jedi knew, he would have had greater loyalty to the Sith than to his family, and killed me instead of trained me, because I'm strong in the Force and could have grown up to oppose him."

"That's horrible," she whispered, and his hand rose from her back to stroke her hair.

"It is," he agreed. "And my father...the galaxy is afraid of him. You know his reputation as well as I do. I was a child, and I was afraid of him, too. When I found out that he was my father...I was still afraid of him, because there still was his reputation. How could I not be devastated, knowing that my father was the man the galaxy was terrified of?" He sighed. "And somehow, he knew exactly what to do to make me feel better. Would you believe that he hugged me? I almost didn't at the time, but then I realized...if a Sith Lord could hug me, then there had to be more to him than just being the Sith Lord."

"As there's more to you."

He smiled at her, and kept stroking her hair. It was such lovely hair, soft and silky, if slightly tangled from sleeping. "I needed that comfort, then. Do you think I'm weak?"

"I did, once," she said, seriously, and though that was not what he wanted to hear, he listened. "When I saw you in the library and felt your loneliness, I thought you had to be weak. I was never--well, rarely--lonely, and I never gave into it. But I was still attracted to you, and wanted to get to know you better, and once I did, I knew how strong you were."

"It's not a weakness to feel, Mara," he said, and his other hand came up to cup her cheek. "The weakness is in making yourself not feel. Emotions make you powerful. And not just some emotions," he added, anticipating her when she opened her mouth. "Whatever the Emperor says, positive emotions can be just as much a driving force as negative ones. Tapping into my joy has given me as much power as tapping into my anger has. It's all a rush."

They lapsed into silence then, unsure of what to say next, or even if more needed to be said. They'd gotten used to their friendship, and now it changed, and there were more things to get used to. They couldn't go back to what they once were.

Mara's eyes slowly closed, and her breathing evened out as she fell asleep again. Luke reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, and froze when she shifted so that her cheek was cupped in the palm of his hand. Feeling her soft skin against his, Luke knew that there was no turning back, and knew further that he wouldn't want to.


	8. 8

NOTE: This story does have a sequel, which is called Burnt by the Sun, and it will take us into the original trilogy (and, finally, you will get Han and Leia and everyone else!). But I'm going to take one fic to go through what was three movies, so it is going to be long. And I will not post chapters as I write them; in order to make sure that characterization is constant and plot lines are tied up, and all that, I will be sending it to my betas only after I have finished it, and you will start getting it only after that.

This means, basically, do not expect the sequel any time soon. If I'm even done with the fic before this time next year, I will be quite pleased with myself, and even after that, each chapter will have to be betad. Yes, it's a time-consuming process, but only because I am determined to give you guys the best I have. The fic is started already, and I'm having lots of fun with it so far, but there's a lot that I'm going to be doing with it, and that takes time. So, please, be patient with me.

8

Darth Vader hated trying to be subtle.

He just wasn't very good at it.

"I understand you are...less than happy with some of the Emperor's policies."

Kier Jonas, Captain of the _Imperial_-class Star Destroyer _Venomous_, immediately grew pale and pasty-looking, and his small sense in the Force radiated the fear that Vader was about to kill him for disloyalty. Vader wanted to sigh, both because the quality of officers was clearly deteriorating and because even his subtlety was too blunt not to scare.

But the man was still the captain of an Imperial Star Destroyer, and would be useful to have on his side, and so Vader would both put up with him and convince him that he was not about to be killed.

"Lord Vader, I assure you, my loyalty to the Empire is absolute, I have never even considered other options," the man babbled, a few beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Did he realize that he was digging himself deeper into a hole with every word of supposed assurance he spoke? It was good for him that it was not Vader's goal to root out treason towards the Emperor right now.

"Calm down, Captain. I am not about to kill you," Vader snapped with impatient annoyance. "At least, assuming it is the _Empire_ that you are truly absolutely loyal to."

Now the man looked baffled. Damn subtlety anyway. He wished he didn't have to use it, but if the Emperor ever asked him about this conversation, at least before Vader was ready, then Vader had to be able to tell him the content with some degree of truthfulness, and so asking for outright sedition would be a less than good idea.

"I have always been a loyal son of the Empire," the captain said cautiously, his face regaining some color. Vader hoped he was regaining some backbone as well.

"Yes," Vader agreed, and the captain relaxed; or at least, relaxed as much as he could in the presence of a superior officer. "But change must come to all things, lest they rot from within and decay." A lesson the Jedi had learned too late.

Jonas frowned. "My lord?"

"The Empire cannot remain as it currently is forever," Vader said. "For the sake of its survival, change must eventually occur. Do you not agree, Captain?"

The confusion in the man's eyes began to clear: he was starting to understand. Maybe subtlety was not so difficult. "Stagnation must be avoided," Jonas said.

"Both of us, then, are committed to keeping the Empire from stagnating?"

The captain nodded. "Yes, my lord," he murmured respectfully, the clear light of understanding in his eyes. He wasn't just saying yes to an abstract statement, and there was Vader's victory.

The conversation over, Jonas saluted, and Vader nodded in acknowledgment and left. He was done here. It was not an overt declaration of support, but a declaration all the same. And now he had an appointment with the Emperor to keep.

On his way from Coruscant's--he never could think of it as Imperial Center, after having known it as Coruscant for almost thirty years, and the name change was still recent--main military base to the Imperial Palace, Vader considered his latest supporter.

Captain Kier Jonas, a man in his forties who tried to keep a code of honor, yet was willing to bend it enough to gain high position in Palpatine's Empire. He disliked slavery, but went along with it because he would be executed as a traitor if he spoke out against it. He thought taxes were too high, even though some of the credits from those taxes paid his wages, and it was to his benefit to keep them high. Like many military officers, he disliked and distrusted politicians, and was old enough to be aware that Palpatine had been a very successful politician before he declared himself Emperor--and was aware, too, that a politician Vader would never be.

He was not the first officer who Vader had been cautiously--or at least with more caution than was his warrant; it wouldn't do to have Palpatine become aware of his actions too soon--sounding out; nor was he the first to accept Vader's unspoken proposal. But all the others had been captains of lesser ships than an _Imperial_-class Star Destroyer, captains who were eager to gain favor in a new system by promising support. Vader was gradually working his way up the ranks, and soon he would move on to generals and admirals. Of course, not everyone was receptive to his suggestions, and he couldn't kill the ones who weren't without alerting Palpatine, but so far at least three-fifths of the men that he'd talked to did not seem averse to change.

His steps slowed as he drew nearer Palpatine's throne room, and he took a moment to clear his thoughts. Palpatine must not know anything of what he was planning.

The doors in front of him opened. He strode in.

"Welcome, Lord Vader."

At the foot of the dais the throne stood on, Vader stopped and knelt, bowing his head. "My master," he replied. "What is your will?"

There was a slight pause, then the Emperor replied, "Only to talk to you, Lord Vader."

That was not good. Of course, it was better than the thought that Palpatine had summoned him to make him explain his conversations with the various Star Destroyer captains that he'd been talking to, but lately whenever Palpatine just wanted to "talk", the topic always seemed to be Luke.

It made Vader very suspicious, but there was nothing he could to about it. Soon, at least, Luke would be out of Palpatine's reach.

Palpatine's next words surprised him as much as they concerned him.

"Have you ever thought about grandchildren, Lord Vader?" the Emperor asked suddenly, thoughtfully.

"_Grandchildren_, my master?" Vader repeated, stalling even as his brain seemed to work overtime in trying to think of why Palpatine had asked.

He'd thought of grandchildren, but only briefly, and soley to ensure that his son was taking the proper precautions against their existence. Luke had blushed and stammered his way through a loud and vehement affirmation, saying that both he and his lover--how strange it still was to think of his Luke with a lover; he could remember his thirteen-year-old son asking in disgust why anyone would want one--were protected against the possibility of children.

"Yes, Lord Vader, grandchildren," the Emperor said, with patience. Though the Emperor was always patient, Vader couldn't help but think of it as a bad sign.

Well, it shouldn't hurt his plans to tell part of his thoughts on the subject. "Only briefly, my master, and just to make sure that they will not happen until my son is ready," Vader said slowly.

"And your son has reassured you that they will not?" There was something strange in the Emperor's tone. Something oily. Slippery. Vader would never be an adept at subtlety, but Palpatine was far and away a master, and Vader could not tell what was going on. He remembered Luke saying that Palpatine told him not to get Mara Jade pregnant. Was this just to make sure that Luke was following that order?

"Yes, my master," was all he could say.

"Good," Palpatine said, and this time something else came across in his tone, a sort of "I know something you don't know" taunting. Vader felt his anger begin to rise, and wanted to yell _Why are you asking this? What is your game?_ at his master, but he kept a hold on his anger and stayed his voice. Palpatine did not like being questioned, and Vader did not want to give the impression of being someone who was questioning.

Well, perhaps one question would be all right. "Why do you ask, my master?" he said, and raised his head slightly to observe Palpatine's reaction.

The Force was with him; the Emperor looked indulgent instead of angry. Even after thirty years of knowing him, twenty of those knowing him as a Sith Lord, his master could still surprise him. "The Force is strong in your family," Palpatine said finally, after a long pause.

There was another stretch of silence, and in the hopes of prompting the Emperor to continue, Vader said, "Yes, my master."

It was true, after all. Vader and his son were the strongest Force-users in the galaxy, bar none. Palpatine was well aware of that, though Vader knew he didn't necessarily like it. He never liked the idea of someone surpassing him in something, even when he could use that person, as Vader had been used.

But the time of Palpatine's dominion was almost at an end, and to Vader, that end could not come fast enough.

Vader thought Palpatine done with revelations for the day when Palpatine spoke again, a hint of satisfaction flavoring his feeling in the Force. "Perhaps when your son and my Hand are older, they shall...gift you with a Force-strong grandchild."

Vader unconsciously stiffened in understanding, but showed no other outward signs of surprise. That was what Palpatine was after? It made sense. It made a disgusting amount of sense. Vader didn't like it at all. The very idea of it, what Palpatine was insinuating, was enough to make him angry.

But he kept a hold on his ever-increasing rage, and said, "Perhaps, my master."

He hoped Palpatine would release him soon. He wanted desperately to go kill something. It would not, of course, be the person whose throat he really wished to be crushing in his hand, but even throttling an incompetent stormtrooper was a good enough outlet for his anger.

But it seemed to be the day for Palpatine indulging him, and soon enough he was making his departing bow. It was as if Palpatine knew exactly what effect the statement about grandchildren would have on him and was amused enough by it to let Vader go and take his fury out on something that didn't matter. And it was not surprising that Palpatine knew him so well, but it was also not making him hold his temper any better.

His distemper must have been obvious, for he saw few people as he walked through the Imperial Palace's corridors, and fewer still once he reached his own home. But he was infamous for killing people even when he wasn't annoyed, and he was sure that no one wanted to chance him in a rage. He was avoided.

There was no one to be seen in his palace. No one he could kill. No one he could throttle with the Force, watch as hands tried to pry away invisible fingers and failed, because he had power and they did not, he was everything and they were nothing.

He headed for his dueling room, and the droids that awaited him there. They were nothing, not a challenge, but he could destroy them too, and he craved destruction.

He activated two at once, set to their highest difficulty level. But it was not difficult enough; these droids were not produced by someone who knew all the nuances of lightsaber combat the way that Vader did, and the droids could not use the Force. He made short work of them.

But it did not ease his anger. Instead his fury grew, a living thing, a dragon that had lived inside him for decades, one that wasn't appeased by the demolition of nonliving matter. The dragon wanted something sentient for its meal, something that cared about whether it lived or died. Having the ability to completely destroy a droid was nothing; anyone could do that, because droids were made to be subservient and to be eventually recycled. The ability to destroy another person, however...there was power.

He activated more droids, four this time, in the hopes that twice the droids would be twice the difficulty, but it wasn't to be. His red lightsaber lopped off mechanical hands and head with ease, leaving bits of useless machinery strewn about him on the floor.

None of it diminished his anger.

_Palpatine wants your son to **breed** for him,_ the dragon whispered inside him, fanning the flames. _Breed Force-strong children for him to twist as he wills. Their mother would be his Hand, after all, and she would probably give them to him before they ever saw a cradle. He didn't have you straight from birth, and he didn't have your son, but he could have your grandson, or granddaughter. Use them as controls on you and Luke, and make Skywalkers betray each other._

Vader activated droid after droid, and let devastation reign.

He wished Luke had never met Mara Jade, no matter that his son was happy with her. If Luke had never met her, she could not betray him.

Something inside him, something not the dragon, whispered that he wasn't being fair to her. Perhaps she would not betray Luke. Perhaps she would not want any child she bore him to be raised by Palpatine. But he stopped his ears and did not listen to this whisper, because he had learned long ago that life did not respond to optimism.

Killing Mara Jade was not an option--his son would not understand, and would be hurt, and Vader would not hurt his son if it could be avoided. Not to mention what Palpatine would do if Vader should kill his Hand for what seemed such a trivial reason.

He could not kill her, but he could watch her. She was dangerous, had the potential to be even more so, and therefore he would keep an eye on her, and make sure that she did not do anything that might hurt his plans.

When they were older...but Luke would be gone soon, away from Palpatine, and away from Mara Jade and opportunities to get her pregnant. He would be safe. Vader would not be a grandfather yet, and his grandchildren would not be used against him.

_(Father?)_ a familiar voice spoke into his mind.

Luke. Luke was contacting him. He finished off the last droid and shut down his saber, closing his eyes behind his mask and trying to regain some measure of calm. Talking to Luke while angry wouldn't help.

_(Yes, my son?)_

_(Father, I felt your anger. Is something wrong?)_

Vader might have smiled, if he hadn't still been angry. His son, who would do anything to help those he cared for. It was one of the first things he'd noticed in his first meeting with his son, the boy who gave himself away to protect his aunt and uncle, and Luke was not so far into the Dark Side as to have lost that protectiveness.

_(It is nothing, my son,)_ he sent, and felt a brief shiver of regret that this mental contact was all he had. He would take what he could get, of course, but he always preferred seeing his son in person.

_(It didn't feel like 'nothing',)_ Luke persisted--a thing that would likely have gotten him killed had he been anyone other than Vader's son. _(I haven't felt you that angry in a long time.)_

Vader sighed. His son was too perceptive at times. _(You and Jade are still taking repress medications, are you not?)_ Vader asked, just to make sure.

There was a moment of mental silence, then Luke said incredulously, _(Please tell me that that's not what's making you angry. Of course we're still taking the repress meds! We have no desire to be parents right now.)_

_(But later?)_ Vader asked, suddenly suspicious. How deeply did his son's feelings for Mara Jade run?

_(We haven't discussed it, beyond making sure it couldn't happen right now,)_ Luke replied, sounding taken aback. _(Besides the fact that we're just having fun, I'm leaving soon, and I might never see her again. Children always seemed a moot point.)_

There was something concealed, some suppressed feeling that resonated along their link. _Were_ they 'just having fun', as Luke put it? Was there something more? Surely Luke didn't feel as deeply for Mara Jade as Vader had felt for Padmé; they'd only known each other for a couple of years, and weren't even fully grown.

_You told Padmé you were going to marry her not five minutes after you met her,_ a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him. _And you were only just over a year older than Luke is now when you finally did._

He told that voice to shut up. Luke was not Vader. Feeling so deeply for someone was dangerous in Luke's position, and so was fathering a child. There was Palpatine, always ready to turn a situation to his advantage.

_(Father,)_ Luke said, bringing Vader's direct attention back to his son. _(Why were you worried? I've told you before that we're both on the meds.)_

_(Stay that way,)_ Vader warned, instead of answering Luke's question. He didn't need to worry his son with thoughts of Palpatine's plans for Luke's as-yet-not-conceived child.

Suspicion flowed along their link, but Luke was apparently accepting Vader's reluctance to share the true reason for his anger. Then Luke changed the subject.

_(I talked to the Emperor recently,)_ he said, _(about a visit to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru on Tatooine.)_

Vader's attention sharpened; this was the first stage of their plan, about to be set in motion. Luke should be able to find some sort of contact on Tatooine, hotbed of crime and conspiracy and rebellion as it was, or so they'd reasoned. _(And his reply?)_ Vader prompted.

_(He is less than happy with my attachment to them,)_ Luke said. _(He was very reluctant to grant me leave at first.)_

_(But you changed his mind, did you not?)_

_(I did, eventually.)_ Luke sighed, an exhalation of breath that Vader felt through their link despite their physical distance. _(But it is good that I am leaving soon. I think this is the last time that he would indulge me by letting me see them. He already insinuated that attachment to extended family is unbecoming of someone my age, and that I should be beyond such childish things.)_

So similar to Vader's memories of the Jedi. Different words, different reasoning, but the same sentiment--it seemed that everyone was conspiring to keep Skywalkers away from their family. Vader had to concede that it made sense, considering that the Skywalkers were the most powerful family in the galaxy, but sense did not preclude resentment.

And to think that he had once thought Palpatine would be an improvement on the Jedi, in regards to family. He had been a fool, but his time of foolishness was ended. He was aware of Palpatine's true nature now, and would not fall for his lies again.

_(How soon are you leaving?)_ Vader asked.

Luke seemed to hesitate. _(In two days,)_ he said. _(The leave is supposed to be two weeks, though that doesn't matter.)_

Two days. He would have his son for two days, and then not see him again for the Force only knew how long.

But he _would_ see his son again, before he had to say goodbye. _(Would you like to spar tomorrow?)_ Vader offered, and hoped Luke would accept. He surely had much to do to get ready.

But Luke sent a brief pulse of gratitude along their bond. _(I would like that, Father,)_ he said. _(1400, in the sparring room at home?_)

Vader couldn't help but note that Luke still referred to Vader's palace as _home_, and was glad for that. He sent a wordless affirmation, and then Luke cut the link.

Even though Luke hadn't gone anywhere yet, Vader was already starting to feel alone.

--

The two days had passed quickly, much more than Vader would have preferred. It seemed no time at all before Luke contacted him and told him that he was about to prepare his ship for departure. But it was at least early in the morning, and it was doubtful that there would be many people around the Emperor's private hangar bay, and so Vader thought he could chance seeing his son off.

He arrived to see Mara Jade saying her own goodbye to Luke, and Vader turned away, to give them a bit of privacy. Luke, who had seen him enter, sent wordless thanks. Vader turned back to face his son just as Luke and Jade separated, reluctance in every line of their bodies. Luke brushed a hand along Jade's cheek, casually intimate, smiled and murmured something that made Jade smile in return.

Then she turned and walked away, head held high and back straight. She looked at Vader, and met his eyes for a moment, and something passed between the two, some sort of fellow feeling, and Vader knew that she did at least care for Luke. Though her eyes filled with cool indifference soon after, Vader had seen leftover warmth flickering like flame. Putting aside his ambivalence towards her momentarily, Vader nodded at her, and she nodded in reply.

They had something in common, after all, even if it was only Luke.

And Luke was smiling at him, he could see once he focused on his son again. He strode forward, and put a hand on Luke's shoulder, wanting to touch his son just one last time before he left.

"I will not be able to contact you often," he said, as quietly as the vocoder would allow, which wasn't very but was enough.

"I know," Luke replied, his voice much softer than Vader's. They'd gone over this before, but Vader just wanted to make sure. "Nor I you, without raising suspicions. But we will keep in contact, even if infrequently."

Vader nodded, and paused. What to say? What could he say, to this son who was about to go out into the galaxy and help make their dreams reality? "Look after yourself," he said, finally.

"I will," Luke said seriously, as if Vader had not told him that so many times before that they'd lost track.

"May the Force be with you," he said, and squeezed Luke's shoulder gently before letting go.

"And with you," Luke replied, smiling one last time at his father before turning away and striding up the ramp into his ship.

Vader watched him for a long moment, before turning away himself. He had his own job to do, and Luke was now out of his hands.

--

When Vader returned to his main office, he saw that he had a text-only message marked _Urgent!_ on his comm console, from the governor of Toprawa. With a strange anticipation running down his spine, he opened the message.

_Lord Vader,_ it read, _Rebel spies have stolen our facility's plans for the Death Star and transmitted them to an unidentified Corellian corvette, which escaped to hyperspace. I believe that they have a contact high in the Imperial hierarchy who might try to use his influence to get the plans to the Rebellion. I felt it my duty to inform you, and await whatever punishment you deem fit. Ever your servant, Governor Gerracht_

Such a short missive, but no less important for its brevity. The Rebels had the Death Star plans...quickly, on a hunch born of the Force, Vader accessed the records for senators who had left the planet in the past week. There was one senator, a very new and very young, idealistic one, who he'd been keeping his eye on...

Ah, there it was. Senator Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, a girl no older than his son, had recently left Coruscant in the diplomatic vessel _Tantive IV_, which was registered as being a Corellian corvette. There was no possibility of coincidence--Vader had spotted her as a likely Rebel the moment she'd stepped up to her new position as the senator of the world her father ruled as viceroy. Luke had once suggested talking to her, but Vader had vetoed it: there was no way that she would give herself up as a Rebel to an unknown boy who said he wanted to join, and he would have just brought suspicion on himself.

So, Leia Organa was going to run the Death Star plans to the Rebels, who would likely try to destroy it--though they had little chance of success unless his son had already joined them; Vader knew the Death Star's weakness, as did Luke, and the two of them were probably the only people in the galaxy with sufficient piloting skill, not to mention talent in the Force, to pull it off.

Well, this was a development that he could not avoid telling the Emperor about; the Death Star was his toy, after all. Quickly he keyed in a request to see the Emperor at his earliest convenience, and spent the time until the summons reading and responding to the rest of his messages.

He did not have long to wait; before an hour was up, the _incoming message_ light on his holo-terminal was blinking, and Vader quickly arranged himself in the subservient kneeling position demanded of him by his master before pressing the _receive_ button with the Force.

"What is so urgent, Lord Vader?" the Emperor snapped as soon as the holo appeared, not even bothering with pleasantries.

"The Death Star plans have been stolen from the facility on Toprawa," Vader said immediately. "I believe Senator Leia Organa of Alderaan is involved."

The Emperor paused for a moment, and thoughtful silence filled the air. Then, slowly, a smile crept across the Emperor's decrepit face. "This sounds like the perfect opportunity for something I know you have been waiting for, my friend," Palpatine said.

"Master?" Vader queried cautiously. What he had been waiting for...there were many things, but surely Palpatine was not about to give him what he most anticipated. That was too much to hope for.

"Yes," the Emperor said. "An end to the bureaucratic nonsense, as you put it once, I believe, that was left over from the death of the Republic. The senator of a trusted, influential planet in the Core turns out to have been corrupted by the Rebellion, and who knows how many of her colleagues she corrupted in turn...few will dare to argue when I tell them that it is for the good of the Empire that I must regretfully dissolve the Senate and turn direct control of their systems over to the regional governors."

Dissolving the Senate! A thing that had been in existence for millennia, soon to be as dead as the Jedi Order... Vader had to admit, he had been looking forward to such a thing. The Senate had always been large and unwieldy, and, to him, completely ineffectual. The dissolution of the Senate had been one of the first things that Vader had been going to do once Palpatine was out of the way, but at least Palpatine had saved him that step.

"But in regards to the Death Star plans," the Emperor continued, "you will go retrieve them from Senator Organa, and then you will take her to the Death Star. It is ready to be unveiled to the galaxy, and the young senator will enjoy a front-row seat. Once on the Death Star, you will report to Governor Tarkin, to whom I have given control of the station."

"Yes, my master," Vader said, and the holo of the Emperor nodded to him and winked out.

He stood and went back to his computer terminal, intent on plotting out the senator's perceived course. She left three days ago, heading towards the Arkanis sector. If he left immediately, and at the top speed of his Super Star Destroyer with her ship traveling its fastest as well, then they should rendezvous at...

Well, wasn't this interesting. If the senator continued along her current course, then they would rendezvous above _Tatooine_.

Tatooine, the planet to which his son was already en route. The Force was truly with him and his son now.

But he would not ask Luke to catch Senator Organa in his place. _Rescue_, on the other hand...it would certainly make her, and her Rebellion, trust him. And then, if he were to destroy the Death Star for them...

His son Luke, Darth Umber, the second in line for the Imperial throne, would turn out to be a hero of the Rebellion.

Completely aware of the irony, Vader laughed out loud, and couldn't wait to watch it all play out.

END


End file.
